DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 


DEMOCRACY 
IN  EDUCATION 


BY 


JOSEPH  KINMONT  HART,  PH.D. 

Of  the  Department  of  Education,  Reed  College. 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1919 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


TO 
THE  DEAR  COMRADES 

OF  LIFE  AND  WORK  ON 
THE  FRONTIER 


2065945 


PREFACE 

EDUCATIONAL  experiment  and  reconstruction  no  longer 
need  an  excuse;  all  that  they  need  is  illumination.  This 
will  come  from  a  number  of  sources,  one  of  which  must 
be  history.  It  is  said  that "history  proves  nothing, ' '  which 
may  be  true;  it  is  certainly  true  that  history  leaves  many 
things  to  disprove.  And  history  does  reveal  many  phases 
of  the  educational  problem  which  must  be  made  the  sub- 
ject of  critical  investigation.  History  digs  up  the  prob- 
lems and  shows  their  roots  grown  deep  in  old  soils. 

But  history  has  been  too  freely  presented  as  mere  trans- 
piring of  events;  or,  if  any  lessons  are  to  be  learned  from 
history,  those  are  usually  along  the  line  of  the  "vanity  of 
human  wishes. ' '  None  the  less,  either  from  history  or  from 
the  clear  sky,  we  have  become  possessed  of  certain  ideals, 
ideals  which  run  counter  to  some  of  the  assumptions  of  the 
past,  and  of  certain  traditional  survivals  of  the  past  that 
still  remain  with  us.  The  modern,  Western  world  pro- 
fesses to  have  taken  democracy  as  its  political  goal ;  certain 
of  the  peoples  of  this  Western  world  profess  to  have  taken 
it  also  as  their  social  goal;  and  all  of  them,  or  nearly  all, 
feel  the  profound  urge  of  that  same  ideal  as  an  economic 
and  industrial  goal. 

Nowhere,  however,  has  democracy  been  taken  as  the  edu- 
cational goal.  It  has  been,  indeed,  professed  in  America; 
but  it  has  never  been  professed  seriously  enough  to  cause  us 
to  transform  our  traditional  and  therefore  autocratically- 
inspired  educational  instrumentalities  into  actual  demo- 
cratic institutions.  History  has  not  been  interpreted  as 


viii  PREFACE 

offering  comfort  to  our  democratic  aspirations.  The  fate 
of  democracies  has  almost  always  been  pictured  in  dismal 
colors.  To  be  sure,  history  does  not  prove  that  democracy 
will  be,  or  must  be,  successful ;  but  history  does  show  that 
human  purposes  have  been  powerful  determinants  of  the 
long  course  of  events,  and  democracy  is  now  our  human 
purpose. 

The  Great  "War  has  become  the  war  for  democracy.  But 
while  big  guns  may  do  valiant  service  for  democracy  again, 
as  not  infrequently  in  the  past,  it  is  of  the  very  logic  of 
democracy  that  it  must  some  day  be  based  upon  intelli- 
gence and  moral  freedom,  rather  than  upon  force.  Hence 
the  ultimate  problem  of  democracy  becomes  the  problem 
of  education.  Two  items  become  important,  therefore. 
First,  history  must  be  so  interpreted  that  the  actual  gains 
which  democracy  has  made  in  the  past,  and  the  lasting 
problems  which  still  face  democracy,  will  stand  out  clearly 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  democratic  citizen,  the  one  as- 
pect of  the  subject  for  his  cheer,  the  other  to  deepen  his 
sense  of  responsibility.  Second,  education  must  be  seen  as 
something  more  than  a  school-room  task,  to  be  turned 
over  to  immaturity  and  impracticality  for  solution.  The 
school  must  become  an  actually  socialized  institution,  and 
education  must  find  itself  at  home  once  more,  as  in  the 
olden  days,  in  the  very  life  of  the  community. 

This  book  attempts  to  interpret  history  and  contempo- 
rary problems  in  education  from  this  point  of  view.  It  is, 
of  course,  tentative  and  subject  to  continuous  reinterpreta- 
tion.  It  is  over  brief  for  such  an  inclusive  aim ;  but  a  book 
in  the  democratic  spirit  must  leave  something  to  the  im- 
agination of  the  reader.  The  handling  of  materials  will 
show  a  frank  and  avowed  interest  in  the  cause  of  democ- 
racy; just  as  every  history  shows  some  sort  of  interest 
in  some  sort  of  outcome. 


PREFACE  ix 

I  have  had  the  help  of  innumerable  friends  and  some 
books.  I  do  not  dare  enumerate  all  the  friends  who  have 
offered  suggestions.  I  shall  mention  two  who  have  given 
critical  assistance:  President  Edward  0.  Sisson,  of  the 
University  of  Montana,  and  Mr.  Clarence  L.  Clarke,  of  the 
University  of  Chicago,  both  colleagues  of  a  former  time. 
But  neither  of  these  is  to  be  blamed  for  my  errors,  either 
of  fact  or  of  interpretation.  My  debt  to  Professor  John 
Dewey  is  apparent  on  every  page. 

In  general,  this  treatment  is  the  result  of  nearly  ten 
years  of  university  teaching  in  the  field  of  the  history  of 
education.  The  majority  of  the  students  of  the  history  of 
education  echo  the  remark  of  a  superintendent  of  schools 
of  one  of  our  largest  cities :  "I  don 't  see  that  the  study  of 
history  has  anything  to  contribute  to  the  solution  of  our 
problems,  however  much  it  may  have  of  interest  in  gen- 
eral." But  my  own  excuse  for  this  presentation  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  statement  of  a  former  student  who  wrote 
in  a  paper,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  course  in  the  history  of 
education:  "Up  to  the  time  that  I  took  this  course  I  felt 
it  was  the  duty  of  a  cultured  individual  to  sit  at  the  side 
of  the  road  and  watch  the  procession  go  by ;  now  I  want  to 
get  into  the  procession."  At  a  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world  when  the  demand  is  upon  us  all  that  we  "get  into  the 
procession,"  this  book,  with  its  plea  for  a  larger  interpre- 
tation of  democracy  in  education,  may  find  for  itself  a 
place  in  the  illuminating  of  the  task  and  in  the  inspiriting 
of  the  toil. 

J.  K.  H. 

Reed  College, 
Portland,  Ore. 
March  1,  1918. 


TABLE  OP  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION   .      3 
II    THE  METHODS  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  WORLD 

OF  THE  FOLKWAYS 16 

III  EDUCATION  IN  THE  MORB  COMPLEX  FOLKWAYS 

OF  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD   .     ...    30 

PART  II 
THE  WAY  OUT  OF  THE  FOLKWAYS 

IV  EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAYS  OF  THE  OLDER 

ATHENIAN  WORLD 45 

V    THE  BREAKDOWN  OF  THE  ATHENIAN  FOLKWAYS    51 
VI    THE  FIRST  ANSWER:    THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE 

CONSERVATIVES 59 

VIE    THE  SECOND  ANSWER:    THE  PROPOSALS  OF  THE 

SOPHISTS 64 

VIII    THE  THIRD  ANSWER:    THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF 

SOCRATES 70 

PART  III 


IX    THE  FOURTH  ANSWER  :    THE  CONSTRUCTIONS  OF 

PLATO 83 

X    THE  FIFTH  ANSWER  :    THE  WORK  OF  ARISTOTLE    95 
XI    THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD  .  100 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII    THE    ROMAN    CONTRIBUTION    TO    THE    LARGER 

FOLKWAYS        107 

XIII  THE  EDUCATIONAL   SITUATION  IN  THE  GRECO- 

ROMAN  EMPIRE  r    .  114 

XIV  THE  PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY  .     .  120 
XV    CHRISTIANITY   BECOMES   HARMONIZED   TO   THE 

ABSOLUTE  EMPIRE 130 

XVI    THE  IRRUPTION  OF  THE  NORTHERN  BARBARIANS  137 
XVII    THE  COMPLETION  OF  THE  LARGER  FOLKWAYS: 

MEDIEVALISM 145 

PART  IV 
THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD 

XVIII    THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  MODERN  UNDERNEATH  THE 

MEDIEVAL 161 

XIX    SOME  FORESHADOWINGS  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD 

IN  THE  MEDIEVAL 168 

XX    THE  FIRST  FULL  OUTBURST  OF  THE  MODERN 

WORLD  SPIRIT:    RENAISSANCE  .     .     .  179 

XXI    BIRTH-THROES  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD  .     .     .  189 

RELIGIOUS  REBIRTH:    THE  REFORMATION  .  190 

INTELLECTUAL     REBIRTH:     THE     RISE    OF 
SCIENCE 197 

POLITICAL  REBIRTH:     REVOLUTION    .     .     .  208 
ECONOMIC      REBIRTH:    THE      INDUSTRIAL 

REVOLUTION 217 

XXII    SUMMARY:    THE  GENERAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE 

MODERN   WORLD 224 

PART  V 


XXIII    THE  ELEMENTS  WITH  WHICH  MODERN  EDUCA- 
TION HAS  HAD  TO  WORK  .  235 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXIV    THE   TRAGEDY   OF   HUMANISM   IN   THE   POST- 
RENAISSANCE  PERIOD 242 

XXV    PANSOPHY  AS  AN  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM   .     .  249 

XXVI    THE  NEW  METHOD  OF  BACON 255 

XXVII    SIFTING  THE  MATERIALS  OF  EDUCATION  .     .     .  262 

A.  CLASSICAL  MATERIALISM 265 

B.  SOCIAL  MATERIALISM 269 

C.  SENSE  MATERIALISM 274 

XXVIII    EDUCATION  AS  A  PROCESS  OF  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE  283 

XXIX    EDUCATION  AS  NATURAL  GROWTH  FROM  WITHIN  : 

ROUSSEAU 291 

XXX    THE  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM  BECOMES  PSYCHO- 
LOGICAL         300 

XXXI    THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  INTERPRETATION  OF  EDU- 
CATION    309 

A.  PESTALOZZI 310 

B.  HERBART    AS    EDUCATIONAL    PSYCHOL- 
OGIST       317 

C.  FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN  MOVE- 
MENT      326 

XXXII    THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION 336 

XXXIII  THE  EFFORTS  OF  SCIENCE  TO  SOLVE  THE  PROB- 

LEMS OF  EDUCATION 347 

XXXIV  THE  DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION    .  361 
XXXV    SOME  CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY   .     .  373 

XXXVI    THE  FUNDAMENTAL  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM  OF 

THE  PRESENT 386 

XXXVII    THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY  .  .  400 


PART  I 
THE  HISTORIC  BEGINNINGS  OF  EDUCATION 


DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION 

EDUCATION  has  been  going  on  for  a  long  time ;  our  edu- 
cational institutions,  practices,  and  materials  are  the  prod- 
ucts of  centuries  of  accumulation.  We  are  the  heirs  of  the 
ages,  and  we  have  inherited  much,  some  of  which  has 
become  unsatisfactory.  We  have  copied  from  the  past ;  we 
have  used  customs  and  traditions  of  the  centuries ;  we  have 
built  substantial  habits.  But  now  we  are  looking  for  some- 
thing more  adequate  to  the  task.  America  has  been  a  land 
of  inventiveness  in  the  field  of  mechanics.  Should  not 
something  of  that  inventive  intelligence  be  available  for 
use  in  the  larger  social  and  educational  questions  that 
confront  us  ? 

But  this  inventiveness  should  not  work  in  ignorance  of 
the  past.  If  we  are  dissatisfied  with  some  of  the  practices 
and  ideals  of  the  past,  that  is  no  reason  for  uncritically 
discarding  all  the  past.  The  very  possibility  of  successful 
inventiveness  implies  real  acquaintance  with  what  has  gone 
before.  If  we  are  to  be  able  to  deal  with  our  educational 
problems  in  a  clear  and  intelligent  manner,  we  must  know 
something  about  how  these  problems  have  arisen ;  we  must 
see  the  various  ways  in  which  the  great  past  has  been 
effective  in  producing  the  present.  We  must  get  a  long 

3 


4  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

view  of  the  general  course  of  the  world's  experience.  We 
must  begin  with : 

The  Beginnings  of  Human  History. — We  are  being  told 
that  human  history  began  in  what  is  now  called  the  ' '  group 
life"  of  primitive  peoples.  All  over  the  world  in  the  past, 
and  largely  even  to-day,  we  find  such  groups.  They  were, 
and  are,  people  who  live  in  very  primitive  fashion,  with- 
out the  tools  that  we  have  and  use,  and  without  the 
knowledge  or  broad  experience  which  mark  "  civilized  so- 
ciety. ' '  Some  of  these  groups  still  live  much  like  animals, 
in  rude  shelters,  with  little  clothing,  and  with  precarious 
provision  for  food.  They  "get  along,"  except  in  the  pres- 
ence of  severe  crises,  like  the  failure  of  all  foods,  or  a  fun- 
damental change  in  their  physical  environment.  As  long 
as  conditions  remain  fairly  stable  they  live  their  simple 
life,  and  take  little  account  of  time;  they  are  "adapted  to 
their  environment."  Even  in  the  midst  of  our  more  civi- 
lized social  orders,  we  can  find  occasional  communities 
which  live  in  much  the  same  fashion ;  they  are  probably  cut 
off  from  the  main  lines  of  travel  and  communication,  are 
touched  but  little  by  the  "current  of  events,"  and  have 
settled  down  to  a  quiet  life  of  fixed  custom  and  habit. 

In  the  community  or  group  that  is  truly  primitive  there 
comes  to  be  an  almost  complete  marking  out  of  the  lines 
within  which  the  life  of  the  member  may  go  on.  Certain 
activities  are  proper;  others  shade  off  through  the  rather 
questionable  into  the  highly  improper.  These  ways  of 
looking  at  conduct  have  not,  however,  been  deliberately 
set  up;  they  are  the  products  of  generations  of  custom. 
"Whatever  is  customary"  is  moral;  the  immoral  is  seen  in 
any  failure  to  keep  to  the  customary  line  of  action.  And 
custom  comes  to  have  all  the  sacredness  of  a  religious  rite. 
It  is  not  proper  for  any  one  to  question  the  authority  of 
the  group-customs  or  traditions ;  to  do  so  would  be  evidence 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION       5 

of  innate  disloyalty.  Custom  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  ac- 
tual order  of  creation  as  are  the  mountains  or  the  stars. 

Now  in  such  a  group,  whether  ancient  and  primitive  or 
modern  and  secluded,  as  long  as  the  conditions  of  living 
remain  fairly  fixed,  these  social  relationships  (expressed  in 
custom  and  habit)  remain  fairly  rigid:  children  have  cer- 
tain definite  duties  to  their  parents  and  all  older  people; 
marriage  takes  place  between  individuals  having  certain 
definite  relationships  to  each  other,  and  according  to  a  very 
rigid  ritual;  leaderships  in  work  and  war  are  regulated 
by  custom;  moral  controls  have  definite  modes  of  making 
themselves  felt;  and  religious  forms  receive  their  full  and 
regular  share  of  the  time  and  energy  of  the  group.  These 
practices  and  standards  of  loyalty,  morality,  industry,  rev- 
erence, and  obedience  are  th«  natural  and  rigid  results  of 
generations  of  subordination,  selection,  and  survival;  and 
they  are  found  everywhere,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  among 
all  primitive  peoples.  This  whole  range  of  custom  and 
control  has  been  given  the  expressive  name  of  ' '  Folkways, ' ' 
i.e.,  the  ways  of  the  folk.1  This  is  a  convenient  term  and  it 
will  be  freely  used  throughout  this  book  to  cover  this  gen- 
eral type  of  social  organization. 

How  Life  Goes  on  Under  the  Folkways. — If,  now,  we  are 
to  catch  a  full  view  of  the  development  of  education  from 
the  primitive  period  to  the  present  time,  we  must  come  to 
a  more  complete  understanding  of  the  nature  of  the  com- 
mon life  under  the  control  of  the  primitive  folkways.  We 
have  seen  that  these  folkways  are  not  intentionally  organ- 
ized; they  just  "grow  up."  They  dominate  the  activities 
of  the  group.  Children  are  born  into  them  and  grow  up 
subject  to  them.  It  has  been  common  to  think  of  the  life 
of  the  primitive  man  as  being  free ;  but  this  is,  in  large  part, 
a  mistake.  His  life  is  freer  than  that  of  the  modern  man's 

i  Simmer,  "Folkways." 


6  DEMOCKACY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  one  respect:  he  is  concerned  with  fewer  kinds  of  activ- 
ities. But,  on  the  other  hand,  these  fewer  kinds  of  activi- 
ties are  regulated  by  custom  and  tradition  until  each  be- 
comes a  complete  ceremonial.  The  individual  member  of 
the  group  is  allowed  no  freedom  of  initiative  in  the  making 
of  new  modes  of  activity,  or  in  the  remaking  of  old  modes, 
From  birth  to  death  he  acts  as  custom  commands,  without 
thought  as  to  the  reasonableness  of  the  act  and  without 
care  as  to  the  value  of  it.  Habit  is  the  essence  of  this  con- 
trol. Of  choice  there  is  almost  nothing,  and  of  discrimina- 
tion, nothing  at  all. 

All  the  common  interests  of  life  are  found  within  the 
group,  however,  and  under  the  regulation  of  the  folkways. 
Some  form  of  industry  is  found  everywhere,  and  the  modes 
of  this  industrial  life,  as  well  as  the  rewards,  are  controlled 
by  ancient  custom.  Political  organization,  in  the  sense  of 
group  control,  is  here,  and  its  decrees  are  of  hoary  ancestry 
and  unquestioned  authority.  Some  form  of  marriage  and 
family  life  is  recognized  as  proper;  religious  rituals  and 
ceremonials  give  sanction  to  all  proper  activities;  and,  as 
we  shall  see,  educational  practices  make  sure  that  the  social 
structure  of  to-day  shall  be  perpetuated  in  the  children  of 
the  group  in  their  generation. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  authority  of  the  folkways  is  definite 
and  final.  But  it  may  not  be  so  obvious  that  this  authority 
is  a  great  system  into  which  the  individual  is  born,  which 
he  is  bound  to  accept  without  question,  whose  details  he 
masters  with  difficulty,  and  which  remains  external  to  him, 
in  the  sense  that  he  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  its  develop- 
ment, that  it  does  not  express  his  own  personal  desires 
or  impulses,  and  that  he  can  do  nothing  to  modify  it.  He 
takes  it  on  from  outside  himself,  he  surrenders  his  own 
life  to  its  control,  and  he  helps  to  pass  it  on,  unchanged,  to 
the  next  generation.  It  must  be  noted,  too,  that  the  group 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION       7 

itself  is  not  free;  the  present  group  is  but  a  link  in  the 
chain  of  the  generations,  past,  present,  and  to  come.  The 
folkways  are  the  possession  of  the  whole  group, — the  per- 
manent group,  not  this  present  group.  They  are  entrusted 
to  this  present  group  for  its  salvation.  They  must  be  pre- 
served intact  and  transmitted  to  the  next  generation,  for 
the  very  existence  of  the  next  generation  will  depend  upon 
the  faithfulness  of  this  transmission. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  all  these  distinc- 
tions and  conditions  are  clearly  in  the  minds  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  group.  They  are  not.  The  primitive  man 
lives,  even  as  we  do,  in  the  midst  of  conditions  and  under 
the  sway  of  regulations  of  which  he  is  only  dimly  aware. 
The  history  of  civilization  is  the  story  of  how  the  race  has 
slowly  fought  its  way  into  some  more  complete  under- 
standing of  its  own  aspirations  and  the  conditions  of  their 
realization.  We  may  picture  primitive  man  as  a  being  of 
almost  incalculable  possibilities  standing  on  the  levels  of 
first  achievements,  satisfied  with  the  mere  beginnings  of 
social  development,  totally  ignorant  of  the  larger  world 
lying  about  him  which  the  ages  of  science  will  discover, — 
which  has  become,  indeed,  commonplace  to  us  of  later  gen- 
erations. That  first  level  of  attainment  seemed  to  the  prim- 
itive man  an  all  but  complete  world.  There  were,  to  be 
sure,  some  mysteries  about  him  which  aroused  his  fears 
and  compelled  his  prayers.  But,  on  the  whole,  it  was  the 
world  to  him.  He  had  probably  some  ancient  story  of  the 
origin  of  things:  this  world  was  created,  and  filled  up  (as  a 
finished  house  is  filled  with  furnishings)  with  the  various 
objects  of  experience,  plants  and  animals,  man  and  his 
fixed  institutions,  the  folkways  and  all  social  relationships. 
"Whatever  is,  is  right."  His  security  depends  upon  the 
permanence  of  his  world  and  the  finality  of  existing  ar- 
rangements ;  and  his  authority  is  of  the  very  nature  of  the 


8  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

universe  itself.  This  is  the  world  of  the  primitive  man; 
this  his  implicit  philosophy. 

The  Significance  of  Crisis  in  the  Primitive  World. — We 
have  noted  that  as  long  as  the  conditions  of  living  remain 
stable  these  folkway  organizations  of  society  remain  fixed 
and  final.  But  the  conditions  of  living  do  not  remain  stable 
for  very  long.  Crises  of  various  sorts  arise.  These  crises 
are  of  three  general  sorts.  First,  there  may  come  some 
fundamental  change  in  the  character  of  the  physical  en- 
vironment. Earthquakes  may  make  the  land  uninhabi- 
table ;  volcanic  eruptions  may  do  likewise ;  climatic  changes 
may  destroy  the  food  supplies;  epidemics  may  destroy  the 
populations.  Such  experiences  have  been  common  in  the 
history  of  groups.  In  the  second  place,  a  crisis  may  be 
precipitated  by  conflicts  between  two  groups,  which  would 
lower  the  food  supplies  and  probably  result  in  wars.  In 
the  third  place,  an  unusual  individual  may  arise  within  a 
group  and  break  through  the  old  conditions.  But  whether 
through  the  operation  of  physical  changes  in  the  environ- 
ment, through  the  shock  of  warring  social  groups,  or 
through  the  leadership  of  an  unusual  individual,  crises  do 
arise.  They  are  more  or  less  complete  in  their  destructive 
results  and  in  their  opening  of  the  way  to  new  develop- 
ments, either  toward  progress  or  toward  regress ;  and  they 
thus  make  possible  what  is  called  "history."  Of  course 
these  crises  are  feared  by  primitive  peoples;  they  are  un- 
desirable experiences.  The  savage  is  almost  always  what 
Professor  James  called  "tender-minded."  He  wants  se- 
curity, freedom  from  uncertainty;  he  wants  a  world  in 
which  all  questions  have  been  answered,  which  taxes  his 
mind  in  no  unusual  way,  a  world  from  which  all  change 
has  been  eliminated,  into  which  eternal  changelessness  has 
come ! 

Now  out  of  the  folkways  of  this  primitive  world  we  may 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION        9 

trace  all  our  modern  institutions,  our  traditions  of  knowl- 
edge, our  prejudices,  our  superstitions,  and  our  general 
social  attitudes.  Those  ways  of  organizing  the  common 
life  impressed  human  experience  with  qualities  that  are  held 
by  some  to  be  ineradicable,  giving  to  "human  nature"  the 
quality  of  "  unchangeableness. "  Such  a  theory  probably 
goes  too  far;  but  it  is  certain  that  "human  nature"  has 
been  so  definitely  "set"  by  those  experiences  that  the  most 
profoundly  critical  shocks  are  necessary  at  times  to  pro- 
duce constructive  impression  in  favor  of  new  modes  of 
activity.  Thousands  of  years  have  been  required  for  the 
task  of  breaking  through  the  absolute  certainties  of  the 
primitive  world  into  the  dawning  freedom  of  modern  sci- 
ence with  its  attitude  of  endless  inquiry.  The  crises  of 
history  have  slowly  enabled  the  race  to  rise  to  the  view  that 
security  may  be  less  dependent  upon  "certainty"  than 
upon  the  recognition  of  the  endless  round  of  change;  and 
that  progress  depends  upon  escaping  from  "certainties" 
that  are  no  longer  true.  These  crises  have  many  varied 
aspects  in  the  social  world;  they  may  be  economic,  civic, 
hygienic,  moral,  or  the  like.  But  whatever  the  nature  of 
their  origin,  they  all  represent  problems,  difficulties  to  be 
solved.  The  solution  of  problems  implies  the  expression 
of  a  special  kind  of  mental  activity:  critical  intelligence. 
As  we  shall  see  in  later  sections,  the  most  significant  out- 
come of  the  experiences  of  crisis  in  human  life  has  been 
the  development  of  intelligence  and  the  gradual  building 
up  of  the  intellectual  attitude,  as  over  against  the  attitude 
of  habit  and  custom.  History  is,  as  we  shall  see,  the  story 
of  the  continuous  movement  of  the  race  toward  more  effect- 
ive folkway  controls,  on  the  one  hand,  with  an  occasional 
experience  of  crisis,  involving  the  possible  application  of 
critical  intelligence  in  the  reconstruction  of  stable  condi- 
tions of  existence. 


10  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Extent  of  the  Folkway  World. — In  the  beginning  all 
human  society  was  under  the  dominance  of  these  folkway 
controls.  All  peoples  seem  to  have  passed  through  the 
folkway  stage.  Many  have  risen  slightly  above  this  stage 
in  the  course  of  centuries,  organizing  their  larger  social  at- 
tainments upon  what  we  shall  later  call  the  "Oriental" 
level.  Some  groups  have  fallen  more  deeply  into  the  folk- 
way  control,  until  their  life  has  become  almost  wholly  me- 
chanical. Very  few  peoples  have  ever  escaped  from  the 
folkways,  taking  the  race  as  a  whole.  Geographically, 
whole  continents  seem  still  to  be  held  in  this  sort  of 
regimen.  Psychologically,  all  children  come  up  through 
this  experience,  for  most  families  are  still  organized  in  the 
folkway  fashion,  and  must  ever  be  so  organized,  at  least 
to  some  extent.  Most  neighborhoods  are  still  largely  prim- 
itive, feeling  the  pressures  of  old  customs  and  traditions; 
small  towns  are  likely  to  exhibit  this  level  of  development 
in  some  measure ;  city  neighborhoods  tend  to  become  ' '  pro- 
vincial." There  is  a  "fringe"  in  the  mind  of  each  of  us 
that  is  largely  traditional,  firmly  fixed  in  habit,  as  is  bound 
to  be  the  case;  and  there  is  a  large  mass  of  tradition, 
prejudice,  custom,  and  intolerance  in  the  background  of 
oui  common  social  organization.  All  this  may  seem  very 
disagreeable  doctrine,  but  it  is  the  story  of  humanity's  be- 
ginnings, whether  of  the  race  or  of  the  child;  and  so  ob- 
vious is  it  that  it  was  recognized  by  Aristotle  as  having 
fundamental  meanings  for  the  development  of  society.  He 
calls  attention  to  various  phases  of  it.  Perhaps  the  most 
significant  comment  he  makes  upon  the  fact  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  individual  who  otherwise  than  by  mere  accident 
is  not  a  member  of  a  social  group  is  either  a  brute  or  a 
god;  all  human  beings  are  members  of  groups. 

Escaping  from  the  Folkways. — The  race  did  escape  from 
these  primitive  folkways;  that  is  historic  fact.  And  the 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOB  EDUCATION      11 

long  story  of  the  struggles  by  which  escape  became  possible, 
and  by  means  of  which  new  types  of  social  organization 
have  arisen,  is  the  substance  of  our  study.  Here  it  is  neces- 
sary to  point  out  that  escape  from  such  authoritative  con- 
trol may  mean  two  very  different  things.  It  may  mean 
finding  the  larger  freedom  of  a  real  world  of  intelligent 
living,  or  it  may  mean  opportunity  for  the  complete  disin- 
tegration of  individual  and  social  living.  Both  these  re- 
sults have  appeared  in  history.  Yet  there  is  no  reaching 
the  former  result  without  running  the  risk  of  the  latter. 
Freedom  involves  the  chance  to  go  wrong ;  a  "  going  right ' ' 
that  is  imposed  from  without  is  not  freedom.  And  some 
ages  have  been  like  some  individuals:  they  have  struggled 
with  uncertainties,  having  broken  with  their  old  customs 
and  refusing  to  return  to  their  former  "certainties." 
Habit  is  strong  upon  us.  Outside  of  habit  lies  the  un- 
known, peopled  with  strange  creatures,  products  of  igno- 
rance and  fear.  Yet  at  times  we  find  ourselves  compelled 
to  go  forward.  Columbus,  Luther,  Galileo  conquer  their 
fears  and  dare  the  unknown.  Impulse,  energy,  and  initia- 
tive are  strong  within  us  under  proper  conditions,  and  we 
leave  the  old,  we  remake  old  institutions,  we  develop  new 
programs,  freedom,  science,  and  democracy. 

The  first  real  escape  from  these  old,  primitive  controls, 
as  we  shall  see  in  detail  later,  took  place  in  Greece.  The 
Athenian  Greeks  were  compelled  by  the  conditions  of  their 
living  to  expand  their  folkways  until  these  gave  way  under 
the  strain.  Confusion  followed.  The  conservatives  felt 
that  the  age  was  degenerate,  lost  to  all  reverence  or  con- 
trol. And  there  were  those,  the  Sophists,  who  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  conditions  to  make  "confusion  worse  con- 
founded." But  always  humanity  seeks  escape  from  con- 
fusion in  the  effort  to  reestablish  order.  Out  of  this 
breaking  down  of  the  old  authority  and  the  effort  to  set 


12  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

up  new  controls  arose  that  most  wonderful  period  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  the  Age  of  Pericles.  But  internal  un- 
certainty was  supplemented  by  external  danger.  Wars  fol- 
lowed among  the  Greek  states, — Sparta  against  Athens, 
Thebes  against  Sparta,  Macedonia  against  Thebes, — until, 
under  Alexander,  there  was  peace  for  a  moment.  During 
periods  of  peace  society  has  always  tended  to  develop  new 
folkways;  but  the  age  of  Alexander  was  too  brief  for  this, 
and  there  were  too  many  diverse  peoples  to  be  coordinated. 
After  Alexander,  confusion  again  prevailed  until  the 
"coming  of  Rome."  The  Roman  Empire  introduced  an 
age  of  organization,  and  Roman  Law  went  far  toward 
restoring  a  condition  of  universal  order,  with  fixed  modes  of 
control.  Indeed  it  may  be  said  that,  in  some  respects,  this 
tendency  went  too  far ;  for  one  of  the  results  of  it  was  that 
men  came  to  feel  that  life  had  lost  all  its  personal  value 
and  significance,  being  purely  mechanical.  Into  this  me- 
chanical civilization  came  primitive  Christianity,  with  its 
message  of  the  value  of  the  personal  life  and  the  "infinite 
worth  of  the  human  soul."  A  great  conflict  appeared  be- 
tween the  old  mechanical  conception  and  this  new  per- 
sonal and  moral  conception.  But  the  threat  of  barbarian 
invasion  from  the  North  made  organization  necessary;  and 
Christianity  took  form  in  the  Church,  an  institution  that 
grew  to  be  closely  modelled  on  the  plan  of  the  empire 
itself.  This  more  complete  organization  of  the  forces  of 
civilization  helped  to  carry  some  of  the  old  ideals  and 
values  through  the  ages  of  barbarism  and  confusion,  and 
helped  to  make  possible  the  gradual  assimilation  of  the 
Germanic  tribes  to  the  old  civilization  of  the  South.  For 
a  thousand  years  Europe  was  engaged  in  this  task  of  con- 
verting the  barbarians  of  the  northern  woods  into  citizens 
of  the  social  order.  The  result  of  this  thousand  years  of 
effort  is  seen  in  what  we  may  call  "medievalism,"  a  great 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION      13 

world  order,  worked  out  in  theory  and  largely  also  in  prac- 
tice, inculcated  into  the  habit  of  the  people  and  made  to 
appear  as  the  final  statement  of  the  nature  of  the  world  and 
human  life.  This  ''medievalism"  was,  in  effect,  a  new 
and  larger  "folkway,"  fitted  to  the  conditions  of  this  new 
age. 

But  such  a  complete  statement  of  the  world  is  possible, 
just  as  the  primitive  folkways  are  possible,  only  so  long  as 
the  conditions  of  living  remain  practically  stable.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  world  of  physical  existence 
was  made  over.  New  continents  were  discovered,  new  out- 
lets for  human  energy  found.  Finally  a  new  universe,  the 
Copernican,  took  the  place  of  the  old  universe,  the  Ptole- 
maic; and  "medievalism"  disintegrated  before  the  eyes  of 
its  defenders.  Men's  interests  shifted  from  "final"  things 
to  more  personal  experiences  in  society  and  nature.  Ref- 
ormation purged  religion  of  some  of  its  older  absolutism; 
autocracy  found  itself  challenged  by  the  new  political  mo- 
tives of  democracy;  authority  began  to  break  down  under 
the  challenge  of  criticism  and  science ;  and  old  social  castes 
began  to  disappear  as  serfs  became  free  workers  in  the 
growing  industrial  revolution.  The  Modern  Age  came  in, 
the  age  of  inquiry  and  science,  of  freedom  and  democracy, 
of  uncertainty  and  courage.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  that 
age,  not  at  its  end.  We  are  beset  with  its  problems,  not 
born  into  final  folkways.  We  are  developing  the  tools  of 
understanding,  not  learning  old  answers. 

Yet  we  tend  all  too  easily  either  to  fall  back  upon  the 
past,  and  thus  practically  to  bury  ourselves  once  more  in 
old  folkway  conditions,  or  else  we  deny  all  value  to  the  past, 
and  by  sweeping  away  all  its  meanings  we  destroy  ourselves 
on  the  bleak  plains  of  ignorance.  "History  proves  noth- 
ing," except  how  history  has  been  made.  The  student  of 
education  needs  to  know  human  history,  not  primarily  for 


14  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  sake  of  facts  as  facts,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  light 
thus  thrown  upon  the  great  problems  of  civilization  that 
still  confront  us  and  the  processes  involved  in  the  solution 
of  those  problems, — which  is  the  problem  of  education. 
The  folkways  know  only  the  kind  of  education  which  is 
implicit  in  all  custom-controlled,  unthinking,  unprogres- 
sive  groups.  The  present  must  know  a  different  kind  of 
education.  The  intervening  centuries  have  witnessed 
many  experiments,  many  failures,  and  many  advances. 
These  are  the  serious  meanings  of  the  study  of  history, 
meanings  not  to  be  denied. 

The  story  of  these  experiments,  these  failures,  and  these 
advances  forms  the  main  trail  of  this  study.  This  trail 
does  not  follow  a  straight  line  through  history,  for  the  race 
has  not  known  whither  it  was  going,  and  experiment  implies 
error  and  wandering  and  failure.  Nor  has  this  educational 
interest  been  isolated  from  other  lines  of  human  develop- 
ment. Human  life  is  largely  unified,  and  all  lines  of  in- 
terest are  interrelated  and  interwoven.  The  history  of 
education  is  the  story  of  the  progress  of  the  race  in  its 
search  for  new  adjustments  of  its  social  life  in  the  presence 
of  changes  in  the  natural  and  social  environment.  These 
adjustments,  in  so  far  as  they  have  significance  for  us,  have 
introduced  new  intellectual  elements  into  the  experience 
of  the  race.  There  has  been  a  gradual  accumulation  of 
these  intellectual  treasures,  in  the  way  of  the  sciences,  the 
arts,  and  the  philosophies.  In  the  very  midst  of  these  ac- 
cumulations of  experiences  and  their  statement  in  intel- 
lectual terms,  there  has  gradually  developed,  also,  the 
theory  of  development,  the  theory  of  the  process  of  devel- 
opment, the  philosophy  of  development.  That  is  to  say,  we 
are  not  only  becoming  aware,  as  the  folkways  were  not,  of 
the  fact  that  civilization  changes ;  we  are  coming  to  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  methods  of  those  changes,  until  we  seem 


MEANING  OF  HISTORY  FOR  EDUCATION      15 

in  a  fair  way  to  an  actual  mastery  of  those  conditions  and 
their  ultimate  control.  At  any  rate,  the  history  of  educa- 
tion, which  begins  in  the  common,  customary  unintelli- 
gence  of  the  primitive  world,  shows  enough  development 
of  understanding  and  mastery  of  the  conditions  of  devel- 
oping experience  to  point  hopefully  to  the  coming  of  a  day 
of  actual  intelligence,  of  science  and  control,  of  freed  hu- 
manity and  democracy;  not,  indeed,  as  final  terms  in  a 
finished  process,  but  as  the  moving  ideal  in  the  continuous 
struggle  of  humanity,  an  ideal  not  lightly  won  or  held, 
easily  lost,  kept  for  the  inspiration  of  the  largely-remaining 
task  only  by  the  exercise  of  that  ' '  eternal  vigilance ' '  which 
is  the  price  not  alone  of  liberty  but  of  all  our  other  com- 
mon democratic  aspirations. 

We  turn  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  actual  processes  of 
education  in  the  primitive  folkways,  and  then,  breaking 
through  their  binding  customs,  we  follow  the  trail  until  we 
come  out  upon  the  present,  into  the  very  midst  of  our 
social  and  educational  problems,  with  the  expectation  that 
these  studies  will  give  us  a  clearer  perspective  as  to  the 
nature  of  those  problems,  and,  therefore,  real  help  in  their 
solution.1 

i  Bibliographical  materials  for  further  reading  or  study  along 
these  lines  are  noted  in  the  appendix. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  METHODS  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  THE  FOLKWAYS 

IF,  now,  we  have  come  to  have  some  understanding  of 
the  nature  of  the  first  organization  of  society  under  these 
folkway-bonds,  we  are  in  a  position  to  undertake  a  study  of 
the  ways  in  which  education  went  on  in  that  group  life.  It 
is  important  that  we  should  see  these  things  rather  clearly, 
because  all  our  human  progress  has  come  out  of  these  old 
conditions  and  because  very  much  of  that  old  folkway 
life  still  clings  to  us.  We  have  not  yet  escaped  fully  into 
a  life  of  organized  intelligence;  we  are  still  largely  dom- 
inated by  old  folkway  traditions  and  customs.  We  move 
slowly  out  and  up  from  those  lowly  beginnings.  Education 
is  the  most  effective  help  in  this  long  process.  And  if  we 
are  to  understand  the  problem  of  education  in  the  present, 
and  that  means  the  problem  of  civilization  in  the  present, 
we  must  see  how  education  began  in  the  customs  and  habits 
of  the  primitive  world,  and  then  follow  its  essential  wind- 
ings and  struggles  into  the  complicated  situation  of  to-day. 
The  present  is  largely  the  accumulation  of  the  folkways 
and  folkway-changes  of  the  past.  If  we  are  ever  to  escape 
from  mere  custom,  mere  folkway,  into  a  life  intelligently 
organized,  we  must  learn  the  meaning  of  and  the  persist- 
ence of  habit  and  custom  in  individual  and  social  living. 

The  Race  Educated  by  its  Experiences. — If  we  look 
quietly  through  the  long  story  of  history,  we  shall  certainly 
see  that  the  race  has  gradually  developed  its  present  accu- 
mulations of  inventions,  institutions,  and  knowledge. 
These  were  not  all  in  existence  in  its  primitive  period. 

16 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      17 

Sometimes  history  seems  to  be  presented  from  the  opposite 
point  of  view,  as  if,  indeed,  all  these  things  were  in  exist- 
ence (probably  under  cover  somewhere),  waiting  to  be 
found.  Rather  it  would  seem  that  men  have  developed 
the  knowledge  that  we  now  have  through  long  centuries  of 
bitter  experience.  Inventions  have  come  out  of  great  neces- 
sities, at  least  in  some  measure;  and  institutions  have 
grown  and  changed  through  the  agonies  of  revolution  and 
rebellion.  The  life  of  the  race  has  not  been  easy.  The  race 
has  been  gradually  educated  by  its  experience.  Hardship, 
suffering,  poverty,  famine,  pestilence, — these  are  common 
aspects  of  the  primitive  world ;  but  all  experience  educates 
by  building  up  habit  more  rigidly  or  breaking  it  down. 
Victory  and  defeat,  error  and  truth,  mistakes  and  failures, 
certainties  and  fears,  guesses,  doubts  and  hopes,  hatreds, 
animosities  and  wars,  prosperity  and  adversity,  the  sim- 
ple, the  terrible,  and  the  sublime  in  nature, — in  short,  all 
the  ordinary  and  extraordinary  experiences  of  the  peoples 
of  the  earth  have  in  their  time  modified  culture  and  made 
the  world  move  on.  And  out  of  these  accumulating  ex- 
periences, which  have  come  to  all  sorts  of  groups  and  peo- 
ples everywhere,  the  race  has  gradually  built  up  its  folk- 
ways, its  institutions;  it  has  organized  its  inventions;  it 
has  accumulated  its  knowledge. 

Occasionally  great  leaders  have  appeared, — prophets, 
poets,  builders  of  empire,  saviors  of  the  people;  and  these 
have  had  extraordinary  influence  upon  their  times.  They 
have  helped  to  make  life  larger  and  better;  but  usually, 
also,  they  have  helped  to  make  the  world  of  custom  more 
rigid,  for  there  have  been  few  men  in  the  history  of  the 
race  who  were  big  enough  to  put  the  good  of  humanity 
above  their  own  fame  or  power.  Around  them  have  gath- 
ered new  customs  and  traditions, — or  some  new  institution 
has  grown  up  to  bear  their  name  and  to  bind  men  more 


18 

completely  to  some  old  folkway  type  of  living.  This  has 
been  especially  true  in  the  field  of  religion,  as  witness  the 
effect  of  the  life  and  work  of  Mahomet  and  many  others, 
East  and  West.  Usually  such  leaders  either  pose  as  being 
"supernatural,"  or  around  their  memories,  after  their 
death,  the  legend  of  ''divinity"  grows  up;  and  this  makes 
all  they  did  the  more  sacred,  the  more  binding  upon  the 
race;  also  a  certain  permanence  is  secured  for  their  tradi- 
tions. Still,  from  age  to  age,  even  these  leaders  are 
eclipsed,  and  the  folk-experience  grows  and  human  nature 
comes  to  fuller  understanding  of  itself,  realizing  new  mean- 
ings and  taking  upon  itself  new  obligations  and  responsi- 
bilities. 

Under  the  control  of  these  old  folkway  customs  men  are, 
for  the  most  part,  the  mere  playthings  or  victims  of  ex- 
perience, suffering  "the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune"  with  a  sort  of  blind  faith  that  the  next  world  will 
make  up  for  the  evils  suffered  in  this.  The  folkways  are 
the  world  for  them ;  what  happens  in  the  folkways  is  neces- 
sary ;  there  are  no  means  of  understanding  that  men  might 
escape  from  such  conditions  into  a  larger  sort  of  world. 
But  as  we  go  on  we  shall  see  how,  under  pressure  of  events, 
men  come  to  search  out  experiences,  to  determine  whether 
they  are.  really  necessary.  For  example,  there  was  a  time 
(not  very  remote,  even  now)  when  it  was  assumed  that 
such  an  experience  as  typhoid  fever  was  inevitable,  one  of 
the  things  that,  if  it  came,  had  to  come.  But  now  only  the 
most  primitive  mind  accepts  that  view;  typhoid  fever  is 
not  inevitable  and  it  is  gradually  being  eliminated  from 
the  earth.  So  the  "inevitable"  ceases  to  exist  for  us;  but 
it  was  of  the  very  essence  of  experience  in  the  folkways. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  the  fixed  life  of  the  primitive  world 
to  the  gradually  controlled  world  of  to-day.  It  represents 
the  gains  of  the  ages;  it  represents  the  painful  emergence 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      19 

of  the  power  to  think ;  it  means  that  men  have  determined 
to  give  up  being  the  victims  of  experience,  and  have  begun 
to  feel  the  assurance  that  life  can  be  made  intelligent  and 
subject  to  reason.  That  is  the  long  story  of  science,  the 
education  of  the  race  which  runs  in  ever-widening  current 
down  through  history  to  the  present.  "We  are  to  follow 
along  its  shores,  from  its  beginnings  in  old  stagnate  pools 
of  custom  and  tradition.  It  may  be  we  shall  catch  some 
glimpse  of  the  great  ocean  toward  which  its  course  seems 
tending. 

The  Earliest  Forms  of  Education. — We  must  examine  a 
little  more  closely  just  how  the  group  is  educated  under  the 
folkways.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  the  thought  that  edu- 
cation is  something  that  goes  on  in  school-rooms  that  we 
may  be  surprised  to  find  no  school,  in  our  sense  of  that 
word,  among  primitive  groups.  We  may  even  decide  that 
in  that  case  there  was  no  education  there.  But  that  would 
be  a  profound  mistake,  just  as  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
assume  that  children  to-day  have  had  no  education  before 
they  start  to  school,  or  that  the  summer  vacation  has  no 
educational  significance.  Indeed  there  is  some  reason  for 
believing  that  the  most  effective  education,  that  is  to  say, 
the  education  that  most  effectively  modifies  character  and 
conduct,  is  that  which  comes  to  children  in  unconscious 
and  unintentional  ways,  such  as  in  play  and  other  forms 
of  activity.  At  any  rate,  a  very  definite  educational  effect 
was  secured  in  the  primitive  folkway  life  through  these 
out-of -school  types  of  activity.  We  must  look  a  little  more 
closely  at  them. 

The  general  statement  of  these  educational  activities  is  as 
follows :  the  children  of  the  group  must  grow  up  to  become 
the  men  and  women  of  the  group,  if  the  group  is  to  continue 
to  exist.  And  the  children  of  the  group  do  thus  grow  up, 
and  they  do  learn  how  to  perform  the  customary  work- 


20  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

activities  of  the  adult  life  by  participating  directly  in  them 
as  children,  and  especially  by  playing  at  them.  The  play- 
life  of  childhood  becomes  the  work-life  of  the  adult  years. 
The  children  live  out  in  play  what  the  adults  are  perform- 
ing as  work.  The  life  of  the  group  goes  on,  and  the  future 
life  of  the  group  is  provided  for.  The  children  imitate, 
they  are  absorbed  into  the  common  activities;  they  share 
the  group  activities  as  far  as  possible  actually,  and  they  go 
beyond  present  possibilities  by  means  of  play  and  imita- 
tion. They  even  share  the  group  excitements  and  emotions 
in  the  presence  of  dangers;  they  hear  the  tales  of  war 
and  adventure  and  they  relive  those  tales  in  imagination; 
they  see  the  effects  of  hardship,  danger,  or  death;  they 
share  in  the  celebrations  of  victory;  they  are  thrilled  by 
the  stories  that  returning  hunters  or  warriors  tell  when 
the  group  is  gathered  around  the  common  fire  after  the 
work  of  the  day  is  done.  These  primitive  children  live  in 
the  very  midst  of  this  group  life.  Its  industry,  its  politics, 
its  morality,  its  religion,  its  social  demands  wrap  them 
round  about  from  infancy,  molding  their  growth  and  be- 
coming their  education.  Thus  their  education  is  not  of 
books,  or  schools;  it  is  not  bookish  and  remote  from  life; 
it  is  not  intellectual  and  academic.  It  is  immediately  use- 
ful, easily  understood,  valuable  in  the  life  of  the  group. 
It  is  social,  because  it  initiates  the  child  into  the  group  life 
and  need ;  it  is  moral,  because  it  helps  the  child  to  identify 
his  individual  self  with  the  world-interest ;  it  is  civic,  for  it 
prepares  the  child  for  the  responsibilities  of  the  adult 
world ;  and  it  is  thoroughly  religious,  for  it  helps  the  child 
to  enter  into  that  ideal  life  of  the  group  which  is  over  and 
above  the  merely  sordid  concerns  of  the  day. 

The  Aims  of  This  Folkway  Education. — The  deepest  aim 
of  this  education  is,  of  course,  the  perpetuation  of  the 
group.  In  this  regard  the  individual  does  not  count. 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      21 

What  he  may  want  or  desire  is  not  considered;  the  life  of 
the  group  is  the  only  important  fact,  even  for  the  individ- 
ual. Among  the  Esquimaux,  when  food  supplies  are  low 
and  some  must  be  sacrificed  to  save  the  group,  the  old 
men  and  women  must  go.  The  group  alone  is  worth  while, 
and  the  old  men  and  women  have  ceased  to  be  useful. 
Among  other  primitive  peoples  whose  security  depends 
upon  their  strength  in  war,  for  example,  the  ancient  Spar- 
tans, imperfectly  formed  children  are  exposed  to  death. 
The  group  alone  is  worth  while,  and  in  such  a  group  a 
crippled  child  will  be  a  drag  upon  the  energies  of  the 
strong. 

These  primitive  groups  usually  live  within  fairly  narrow 
areas,  and  their  customs  and  habits  become  adapted  to 
natural  conditions  that  are  fairly  constant  and  stable. 
Long  ages  may  pass  for  such  a  group,  until  their  activities 
become  as  certain  as  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun. 
Their  industries  have  very  definite  routine;  their  social 
organization  develops  fixed  modes  of  habit ;  certain  individ- 
uals exercise  authority;  certain  gods  are  worshipped  in 
definite  forms  of  ritual;  and  custom  determines  just  what 
is,  and  what  is  not,  moral.  These  modes  of  life  have  not 
been  deliberately  thought  out.  They  have  just  grown  up; 
they  have  survived  because  they  have  protected  the  life 
of  the  group.  In  the  long  struggles  for  existence  which 
every  group  has  undergone  some  groups  have  perished  be- 
cause they  could  not  thus  find  proper  adaptation;  others 
have  survived  because  they  did  find  how  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  conditions.  But  this  success  was  probably  not 
largely  intelligent.  It  was  a  happy  accident  in  the  main, 
and  later  experience  has  made  it  a  fixed  fact.  But  the 
success  has  been  that  of  the  group.  The  individual,  left 
to  himself,  would  perish.  The  group  must  be  cherished, 
even  for  the  sake  of  the  individual.  Group  custom,  there- 


22  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

fore,  must  dominate  individual  impulse ;  group  habits  must 
be  ingrained  in  individual  action  until  the  life  of  the  group 
is  assured  from  all  conflict  with  individual  will.  The 
group  must  live,  and  all  that  interferes  with  this  primary 
fact  must  be  thrown  out.  To  this  the  individual  must  con- 
sent in  order  that  he  himself  may  have  life  at  all.  In  fact, 
in  this  primitive  social  order  the  individual  scarcely  may 
be  said  to  exist;  he  gets  his  whole  significance  from  the 
existence  of  the  group.  Without  the  group  he  would  not 
be  able  to  exist  or  to  signify.  The  long  story  of  education 
is  the  story  of  the  gradual  emergence  of  the  individual  as 
having  significance  in  his  own  life  and  right. 

The  Content  of  This  Folkway  Education. — Education, 
then,  goes  on  in  such  a  folkway  world  in  the  midst  of  and 
by  means  of  these  common  elemental  factors  of  life.  There 
is  no  school  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  i.e.,  there  is  no  learn- 
ing of  lessons  of  an  abstract  and  remote  nature  out  of  books 
written  in  other  groups  and  remote  from  the  common  ex- 
periences of  the  learner.  Learning  here  goes  on  in  the 
midst  of  actual  living,  and  is  made  up  of  the  elements  of 
actual  life.  It  is  industrial.  Every  group  must  have 
some  means  of  subsistence,  and  the  children  share  in  these 
practical  activities  from  the  first;  they  learn  to  do  the 
things  that  practical  necessity  demands.  It  is  social.  It 
helps  to  perpetuate  the  life  of  the  group  by  making  the 
children  share  in  the  sense  of  group-welfare,  and  by  mak- 
ing real  those  social  values  that  are  implicitly  prized  by 
the  group.  It  is  never  merely  theoretical,  in  our  sense  of 
that  word,  but  always  infuses  its  activities  with  the  feeling 
of  reality  of  the  group  existence.  Yet  behind  all  these 
practical  activities  there  is  a  sort  of  dim  or  shadowy  animus, 
motive,  or  philosophy,  which  may  not  be  wholly  ignored. 

In  addition  to  the  common  activities  of  work  and  play 
which  the  children  share,  there  is  a  wealth  of  story,  tradi- 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      23 

tion,  legend,  myth,  the  accumulation  of  ages  of  hunting 
and  warfare, — hardships  endured,  work  planned  and  ex- 
ecuted or  defeated,  adventures  with  beasts  and  spirits, 
plottmgs  of  the  enemy,  religious  tales  and  ceremonials,  and 
all  the  experiences  of  the  common  feast.  All  these  enter 
into  the  material  of  education.  The  interests  of  the  chil- 
dren are  controlled,  of  course,  by  these  interests  of  adult 
life.  Their  attentions,  i.e.,  the  avenues  of  their  growth,  are 
held  by  the  folkways,  the  machinery  of  adult  life;  by  the 
work,  the  ceremonials,  the  adventures  of  the  adult  life,  and 
the  demands  of  the  elders  of  the  group.  They  are  getting 
ready  to  be  elders  themselves;  that  is  to  say,  their  educa- 
tion is  completely  vocational. 

The  Entrance  into  Membership  in  the  Adult  Life. — We 
have  seen  that  the  individual  is  subordinated  to  the  group, 
and  that  all  the  common  processes  of  experience  tend  to 
impress  the  child  with  the  reality  of  this  super-individual 
life.  But  individual  impulse  is  very  erratic  and  unac- 
countable; and  the  life  of  the  group  is  so  very  important 
that  it  would  probably  not  be  safe  to  rest  the  future  of  the 
group  entirely  upon  the  accumulated  experiences  of  child- 
hood alone  without  further  guarantees.  Somehow  the  chil- 
dren must  be  made  to  feel  the  sacredness  of  their  trust ;  the 
future  of  the  group  must  become  to  them  as  sacred  as  their 
own  individual  lives.  Rather,  the  future  of  the  group  must 
become  their  own  future  life  and  being.  Hence  these  folk- 
way  values  must  be  more  intimately  their  own  than  even 
years  of  habit  would  seem  to  make  them;  they  must  be 
identified  with  their  own  very  lives  through  some  deep  and 
unforgetable  emotional  experience.  The  children,  espe- 
cially the  boys,  must  take  these  customs  upon  themselves 
as  their  own  real  life;  they  must  internalize  them;  they 
must  identify  their  own  dawning  social  impulses  with  them. 
Their  hopes  for  activity  and  enterprise  must  become  one 


24  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

with  the  activities  and  enterprises  of  their  group.  They 
must  eliminate  from  their  lives  all  else  and  cleave  only  to 
these,  until  their  very  souls  declare:  "These  customs  are 
my  life ;  these  people  are  my  people.  I  am  of  them ;  their 
enemies  are  my  enemies,  their  friends  my  friends,  their 
tasks  my  tasks,  their  evils  my  evils,  their  gods  my  gods." 
The  folkways  must  be  made  to  ' '  set  in, ' '  until  all  possibility 
of  individuality  is  lost  in  these  social  necessities  of  his 
group.  Then  can  the  youth  take  his  place  in  the  councils 
of  the  elders  as  a  trusted  man,  his  education  complete,  him- 
self now  one  of  them,  knowing  absolutely  nothing  but  the 
accepted  principles  and  purposes  of  the  group.  How  is 
all  this  accomplished? 

In  our  modern  society  initiation  ceremonies  are  rather 
common,  but  they  belong  to  small  organizations;  they  are 
not  the  activities  of  the  civic  group  as  a  whole.  In  the 
primitive  folkway,  on  the  other  hand,  the  child's  education 
was  completed  by  some  large  public  ceremonial  in  most 
cases.  He  was  put  through  a  more  or  less  elaborate  initia- 
tion ceremonial,  of  which  the  elders  of  the  tribe  were  the 
directors  and  in  which  the  secrets  of  the  tribe  were  re- 
vealed to  him  in  such  ways  as  to  produce  profound  and 
lasting  impressions  upon  him.  These  ceremonials  were  not 
deliberately  worked  out;  they  gradually  accumulated  out 
of  old  practices  and  were  kept  up  through  many  generations 
because  they  helped  to  keep  the  group  together.  They 
helped  the  group  to  survive  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
The  method  usually  employed  was  to  give  the  youth  a 
period  of  fasting,  even  of  suffering,  which  would  induce 
dreams  and  visions.  In  these  visions  spirits  would  ap- 
pear to  him,  from  among  which,  perhaps,  a  Guardian  Spirit 
might  be  revealed;  sometimes  his  Totem  was  selected  in 
these  experiences.  All  this  was  made  as  impressive  as  pos- 
sible by  being  staged  in  some  lonely  hut  in  the  solitude  of 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      25 

the  woods.  Then,  when  he  had  been  thus  profoundly 
stirred  and  while  his  emotions  were  still  vivid,  the  secrets 
of  the  group  were  revealed  to  him,  and  with  weird,  fan- 
tastic music  and  action  he  was  actually  caught  up  into 
the  very  feeling  of  the  elders.  In  some  cases  torture  of 
the  flesh  helped  to  impress  this  moment  upon  him  as  the 
supreme  experience  of  life.  At  any  rate,  the  experience 
became  profoundly  impressive  and  the  average  youth  never 
recovered  from  it;  he  was  "swallowed  up  in  the  group." 
He  was  accepted  by  the  group ;  he  accepted  the  group ;  and 
from  that  time  forward  the  life  of  the  group  was  safe  with 
him.  He  would  die  rather  than  see  the  group  suffer  harm ; 
and  he  will  see  to  it  that  the  future  copies  as  exactly  as 
possible  the  past  that  has  been  revealed  to  him. 

It  should  be  noted  that  this  initiation  experience  has 
broad  social  significance.  It  initiates  the  youth  into  the 
industrial  order  of  the  group ;  henceforth  he  has  a  definite 
part  to  perform  in  the  economic  struggle.  It  gives  him  also 
his  civic  place,  his  position  in  the  political  order.  He  finds 
by  this  means  his  social  standing,  and  above  all  it  is  for  him 
a  great  religious  confirmation.  All  these  things  taken  to- 
gether make  up  the  educational  experience,  and  this  cere- 
mony represents  the  completion  of  childhood  and  the  be- 
ginning of  manhood.  His  education  is  over;  his  work  has 
begun.  In  the  modern  world  mere  fragments  of  this  old 
experience  are  all  that  remain  of  it.  Actual  "initiation 
ceremonies"  now  belong  almost  wholly  to  particular  or- 
ganizations, usually  of  a  secret  sort ;  the  whole  community 
now  no  longer  initiates  its  youth  into  the  community  life. 
It  allows  him  to  find  his  way  as  best  he  can.  He  "gets  a 
job,"  but  the  community  is  fairly  careless  as  to  the  fact. 
He  "comes  of  age"  and  begins  to  vote,  but  little  attention 
is  given  the  fact.  He  may  put  on  the  clothes  of  adult  life 
and  "enter  society,"  but  that  is  his  own  private  affair. 


26  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

He  may  be  " converted"  and  join  some  religious  sect,  but 
that  has  very  little  social  meaning  in  the  old  folkway  sense. 
If  he  should  go  to  school,  especially  to  high  school,  and 
come  to  graduation  time,  the  community  as  a  whole  would 
come  out  to  rejoice  with  him  at  commencement  time.  This 
event  comes  nearest  representing  the  old  community  inter- 
est in  the  future  of  the  youth.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  this 
graduation  experience  is,  perhaps,  the  most  barren  of  social 
significance.  It  means  little  in  the  way  of  assurance  of 
industrial  position ;  it  has  no  particular  civic  result ;  it  does 
not  mean  a  religious  outlook;  but  it  may  have  some  value 
in  opening  the  doors  into  "society."  In  the  folkway  world 
this  initiation  experience  was  all  of  these  things.  It  was 
a  unitary,  highly  emotional,  deeply  impressive  experience, 
under  the  control  of  the  wise  men  of  the  group  and  open- 
ing the  way  of  the  youth  into  all  the  life  of  the  group,  thus 
making  sure  that  the  group  life  would  be  safeguarded  in 
coming  generations.  With  us  it  has  been  broken  up  into 
fragments,  each  of  which  is  profoundly  important  and  in- 
teresting to  the  individual,  but  the  community  does  not  see 
them  in  their  broad  social  meaning,  and  the  youth  as 
surely  misses  their  inclusive  social  significance. 

Values  and  Limitations  of  this  Folkway  Education. — 
The  values  of  this  primitive  education  are  very  real.  It  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  social,  civic,  vocational,  moral  up  to  the 
levels  of  the  moral  life  of  the  group,  and  it  is  completed 
in  a  great  emotional  experience.  Education  of  this  sort 
is  the  highest  concern  of  the  community,  for  it  assures  the 
life  of  the  community.  It  becomes,  also,  the  chief  voca- 
tion of  childhood,  not  consciously  so,  perhaps,  but  in  a  very 
real  sense.  The  children  find  their  real  life  in  this  gradual 
emergence  into  the  full  life  of  the  adult.  The  youth  enters 
into  its  deepest  experiences  because  he  thereby  identifies 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      27 

himself  with  all  that  seems  high  and  good  to  him.  He 
realizes  the  biggest  things  in  his  imagination ;  he  completes 
his  own  life  in  this  complete  life  of  his  little  world.  It  is 
a  narrow  world  no  doubt,  but  a  complete  world,  and  it  is  all 
that  he  has  any  means  of  knowing  or  desiring. 

Over  against  these  very  real  values  we  must  note  some 
lasting  limitations.  Folkways  grow  up  under  rather  rigid 
conditions  of  living.  The  group  is  adapted  to  these  condi- 
tions. As  long  as  those  conditions  remain  rigid  the  group 
remains  fixed  in  its  customs ;  the  folkways  become  as  rigid 
as  is  the  bed  of  a  river  along  the  mountain  side.  This  fixed 
life  instinctively  resists  all  encroachments  from  without, 
and  all  insidious  tendencies  toward  change,  if  any  arise, 
from  within.  Its  industries  become  rigid,  its  social  forms 
arbitrary,  its  morality  purely  customary,  its  religion  wholly 
formal.  And,  back  of  this  practical  rigidity  of  the  com- 
mon life,  there  slowly  emerges  a  sort  of  corresponding  met- 
aphysical rigidity,  a  kind  of  common  philosophy  which 
assumes  that  this  folkway  world  is  the  real  world.  The 
world  was  created  just  this  way,  including  these  customs 
and  traditions,  and  everything  is  just  as  it  should  be. 
"Whatever  is,  is  right."  It  is  the  common,  universal, 
human  story.  A  level  of  living  has  been  worked  out  which 
fits  in  with  the  conditions  of  the  environment.  This  level 
becomes  rigidly  organized,  rounded  out,  satisfactory.  It 
ceases  to  change  perceptibly;  it  forgets  all  past  changes; 
it  denies  all  change ;  it  is  become  complete  habit  organized 
into  a  changeless  environment,  if  such  a  thing  can  be. 

The  innermost  characteristic,  therefore,  of  this  folkway 
education  is  its  rigid  certainty.  It  is  habit,  custom,  tradi- 
tion, in  supreme  measure ;  and  these  rest  upon  the  implicit 
belief  that  the  physical  world  is  as  unchangeable  as  are 
these  folkways.  Quiet,  security,  certainty — these  are  the 


28  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

things  longed  for  in  the  folkways.  Here  is  realized  the 
reality  of  an  old  falsehood :  ' '  Happy  is  the  land  that  has 
no  history!" 

But  the  history  of  education  will  carry  us  far  out  and 
away  from  these  certainties  and  finalities,  through  the  prob- 
lems and  the  uncertainties  of  the  historic  movements  down 
to  the  present  day.  We  shall  see  innovation  take  the  place 
of  habit  here  and  there,  invention  take  the  place  of  custom, 
and  science  strive  to  overcome  tradition.  We  shall  see  the 
conception  of  evolution  gradually  overturn  the  old  folkway 
beliefs  in  the  fixed  and  rigid  order  of  the  world,  until  we 
come  to  our  own  age  with  its  problems,  its  tasks,  and  its 
tremendous  hopes.  Over  against  the  education  that  is  cer- 
tain of  itself,  with  its  knowledge  that  must  not  be  ques- 
tioned and  its  emotional  impressions  that  deliver  the  soul  of 
youth  into  the  keeping  of  the  past,  will  arise  the  educational 
problem  of  to-day:  "How  can  education  go  on  at  all  in  a 
world  that  is  so  little  sure  of  itself,  so  uncertain,  so  restless, 
as  is  this  modern  world?"  It  will  become  obvious  that 
the  educational  programs  of  that  folkway  world  will 
scarcely  meet  the  needs  of  the  restless,  uncertain  present. 
Yet  it  may  also  become  clear  that  there  is  still  so  much 
of  the  old  folkway  temper  in  this  modern  world  that  we 
cannot  wholly  cut  ourselves  off  from  the  attempt  to  under- 
stand that  past. 

Before,  however,  we  take  up  the  long  thread  of  the  story 
of  that  historic  struggle  by  which  the  world  has  escaped, 
in  some  measure,  from  the  folkways  into  a  new  sort  of 
world-organization,  we  must  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  see 
how  these  old  folkways  can  become  still  more  completely 
rigid  as  the  framework  of  a  somewhat  different  order  of 
society.  We  must  look  into  the  nature  of  the  Oriental  type 
of  civilization  and  education.  This  will  help  us  to  appre- 
ciate more  fully  the  fundamental  problem  of  this  folkway 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  FOLKWAY  WORLD      29 

life:  How  may  the  race  escape  from  the  folkways  into  a 
more  intelligent  and  broader  world-life  without  at  the 
same  time  losing  the  unquestionable  goods  that  were  de- 
veloped in  the  folkway  age? 

We  turn  to  a  consideration  of  the  Oriental  type  of  folk- 
ways. 


CHAPTER  III 

EDUCATION   IN   THE   MORE   COMPLEX   FOLKWAYS   OP   THE 
ORIENTAL    WORLD 

WE  have  called  the  general  organization  of  society  in  the 
primitive  world  by  the  general  name  of  the  Folkways,  and 
we  have  seen  how  these  folkway  customs  and  traditions 
control  the  education  of  the  young  among  primitive  groups. 
We  must  now  see  that  in  general,  in  all  these  very  primi- 
tive groups,  these  customs  and  traditions  are  all  unwritten, 
unrecorded ;  they  live  in  the  memories  of  the  elders,  in  the 
rituals  and  ceremonials  of  the  group,  in  the  suggestion  of 
sacred  objects,  and  in  the  habits  of  the  age.  Written  lan- 
guage has  not  yet  arisen.  Hence  all  these  traditions  are 
subject  to  the  imperceptible  changes  that  surely  occur  in 
even  the  most  rigid  world,  variations  which  come  about  in 
the  process  of  transmission  from  one  generation  to  the 
next.  Primitive  men  pride  themselves  upon  the  exactness 
of  their  memories,  but  usually  they  have  no  means  of  check- 
ing up  their  recitals,  save  by  the  memory  of  some  other 
individual.  More  serious  variations  will  occur  through 
changes  in  the  meanings  of  words  that  come  because  of 
modifications  in  the  conditions  of  living.  Of  course  these 
changes  are  usually  unnoticed,  and  a  suggestion  that 
they  were  occurring  would  be  resented  by  all  loyal  mem- 
bers of  the  group. 

Now  these  changes  lead  in  two  possible  directions.  The 
one,  which  though  exceedingly  interesting  must  not  detain 
us  here,  leads  toward  a  more  narrowly  physical  and  ac- 
cordingly a  more  narrowly  social  existence,  as  the  condi- 

30 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      31 

tions  of  living  become  more  and  more  precarious  for  any 
particular  group.  Group  degeneration  is  not  an  unknown 
phenomenon.  But  our  path  leads  elsewhere. 

The  Rise  to  the  So-called  Oriental  Level  of  Culture. — 
The  other  direction  which  may  result  from  these  uncon- 
scious changes  in  the  primitive  folkways  is  that  toward  a 
more  inclusive  and  extensive  organization  of  the  social 
world.  In  the  more  fertile  valleys,  like  the  Nile  and  the 
Euphrates  or  on  the  great  plains  of  India  and  China,  popu- 
lations gradually  increase  until  group  presses  upon  group 
in  very  uncomfortable  fashion,  demanding  some  actual 
revolution  in  the  organization  of  life.  This  is  history. 
Wars  are  the  first  solution  of  the  problem :  the  elimination 
of  the  weaker  group.  In  the  primitive  world  weakness  is 
almost  a*crime.  But  the  desolations  of  war  pall  even  upon 
the  savage,  and  not  infrequently  he  takes  refuge  in  some 
sort  of  a  "treaty"  or  inter-group  understanding.  This 
means,  of  course,  that  his  old  group  isolation  is  broken 
down,  that  his  group  becomes  part  of  a  larger  organization 
similar  to  a  "nation"  or  federation  of  groups.  Such  a 
"nation"  occupies,  of  course,  a  much  larger  territory 
than  the  old  group  knew,  a  territory  too  large  to  be  known 
by  every  member  of  the  "nation."  The  total  population 
of  this  new  federation  may  also  be  too  large  to  be  known 
individually  by  every  member.  Hence,  in  this  larger  social 
organization  there  are  at  least  two  conditions  not  present 
in  the  older,  smaller  group:  a  habitat  not  fully  known, 
and  a  membership  not  personally  acquainted  as  a  whole. 
Yet  it  is  important  that  within  this  larger  "nation"  some- 
thing of  an  actual  community  of  life  should  be  felt.  To  be 
sure,  the  existence  of  the  old  customs  and  traditions  of  each 
particular  group  stands  in  the  way  of  this  complete  fusion, 
for  most  of  these  old  folkways  will  run  on  in  the  same  old 
ways,  even  though  something  of  their  rigidity  and  sacred- 


32  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ness  has  been  lost  through  these  wider  contacts.  Men  do 
not  give  up  their  customs  as  soon  as  they  find  out  they  are 
not  final;  habit  is  too  strong  for  such  an  outcome.  The 
task  of  imposing,  or  developing,  a  common  life  involves 
great  difficulties.  But  social  pressures  have  produced  such 
results.  Something  of  a  common  life  appears,  the  "na- 
tion" really  arises,  and  on  one  stage  of  its  development  it 
presents  the  characteristics  of  the  Oriental  world. 

Development  of  the  New  Folkways. — In  such  a  "na- 
tion" there  are,  as  we  have  just  seen,  accumulations  of  old 
group-customs.  These  probably  have  some  relationship  to 
each  other,  as  the  very  fact  that  these  groups  have  come 
together  shows  that  there  was  some  underlying  likeness  of 
custom  or  tradition.  Still  they  must  all  be  harmonized. 
Traditions  must  be  adjusted  to  each  other  so  as  not  to  jar 
too  greatly  on  neighboring  groups;  industrial,  civic,  and 
religious  activities  must  be  reorganized  to  fit  into  these 
larger  conditions  of  living.  There  are  thus  many  possi- 
bilities of  conflict.  Now  conflict  has  three  possible  out- 
comes: it  may  end  in  war,  in  which  case  the  "nation"  is 
disrupted;  it  may  lead  to  thinking,  a  very  unlikely  out- 
come and  one  which  only  one  nation,  as  we  shall  see,  ever 
really  adopted;  or  it  may  lead  to  a  sort  of  slurring  over 
of  the  more  flagrant  differences,  permitting  the  develop- 
ment of  a  sort  of  common  life  in  which  each  group  keeps 
the  most  sacred  parts  of  its  old  traditions,  unwittingly 
surrendering  much  they  earlier  held  quite  sacred.  Of 
course  many  wars  of  a  minor  sort  may  arise,  and  there 
may  be  some  rudimentary  thinking,  but  the  outcome  has 
usually  been  a  sort  of  mutual  adjustment  of  a  practical  sort 
in  which  much  is  forgotten  on  all  sides. 

Now  in  the  midst  of  this  larger  organization  of  these 
old,  lesser  groups  there  must  emerge  some  sort  of  actual 
embodiment  of  this  growing  unity.  This  new  common  life 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      33 

must  be  bound  together  by  means  of  communication  of 
some  sort,  demanding  a  common  language.  It  must  be 
made  to  conform  to  certain  common  standards  of  loyalty, 
demanding  tests  of  ' '  patriotism ' ' ;  and  usually  it  must  find 
a  common  motive  of  religious  emotion,  demanding  tests  of 
"orthodoxy."  But  a  language  that  is  to  be  common  to 
groups  of  people  who  are  not  personally  acquainted  and 
who  vary  greatly  in  experience  must  become  a  written  lan- 
guage ;  and  a  test  of  loyalty  that  is  to  bind  all  such  diverse 
types  together  must  be  selected  out  of  whatever  is  common 
in  the  total  experience  of  the  several  groups  and  must  be 
given  some  fairly  permanent  form,  i.e.,  it  must  be  written 
down;  while  the  common  motive  to  religious  expression 
must  have  the  reality  of  the  old  folkway  traditions,  i.e.,  it 
must  be  material  selected  out  of  the  varied  folkways  of  these 
varied  groups. 

That  is  to  say,  these  very  social  developments  both  im- 
ply and  demand  the  invention  of  written  language,  the 
organization  of  specialized  government,  and  the  appearance 
of  a  literature  that  shall  preserve  the  standards  and  vitali- 
ties of  the  old  folkways  in  written  form.  Of  course  these 
old  traditions,  coming  from  many  sources,  will  be  contra- 
dictory, even  in  describing  what  is  obviously  a  common  ex- 
perience of  separate  groups.  This  will  involve  criticism 
of  the  traditions,  "harmonizing,"  and  various  forms  of 
accommodation.  But  eventually  a  sort  of  common  litera- 
ture will  have  appeared,  bringing  conventional  standards 
of  culture  which  will  be  binding  upon  all  the  people  of  all 
the  groups.  The  folkways  have  been  made  over  to  suit  the 
needs  of  this  larger  group,  they  have  been  written  down 
in  unmistakable  form,  and  standards  of  "orthodoxy"  have 
begun  to  appear.  These  new  inventions  have  bound  the 
world  in  a  more  rigid  system  than  the  old.  Old  China  is 
an  excellent  illustration  of  this  outcome. 


34  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Education  under  these  Oriental  Folkways. — The  task  of 
education  in  such  an  enlarged  social  world  will  obviously 
be  different  from  that  which  we  have  been  studying  in  the 
preceding  section.  The  world  in  which  this  larger  "na- 
tion" lives  is  too  extensive  to  be  known  by  all  the  people 
from  first-hand  experience.  The  member  of  such  a  group 
cannot  know  his  world  in  a  perceptual  way,  i.e.,  by  merely 
keeping  his  eyes  and  ears  open.  If  he  comes  to  know  it  at 
all,  it  must  be  in  a  conceptual  way,  i.e.,  by  getting  the  ex- 
periences of  other  men  and  trying  to  understand  what  they 
mean.  This  calls  for  a  new  type  of  understanding,  the 
understanding  of  something  you  have  not  personally  ex- 
perienced. It  is  illustrated  by  books.  "We  read  of  things 
we  have  never  experienced  and  try  to  discover  what  those 
things  would  mean  to  us.  It  is  like  the  lessons  in  school. 
"We  study  things  that  seem  unreal,  but  the  books  tell  us  they 
exist.  Hence  we  try  to  understand.  And  these  wider  folk- 
ways are  just  of  that  sort.  They  find  their  proper  state- 
ment in  the  literature  that  has  grown  up ;  they  bring  to  the 
children  much  unfamiliar  material  which  must  be  commit- 
ted to  memory.  Just  because  they  are  wider  in  their  range 
of  materials,  they  must  be  much  more  rigid  in  their  methods 
of  learning ;  and  since  they  cannot  be  fully  understood,  they 
must  be  the  more  implicitly  obeyed  in  a  purely  literal  way. 
They  will  thus  become  universal  rules  of  conduct,  binding 
upon  all  members  of  the  J' nation"  and  adapted  to  the  va- 
ried conditions  of  life.  But  they  will  be  taught  by  a  special 
class  of  "teachers,"  the  accepted  and  authorized  inter- 
preters, who  will  declare  the  meaning  in  disputed  cases. 
They  will  become  the  laws  of  the  country,  the  "common 
law,"  standards  of  conduct,  or  of  manners,  or  of  taste. 
They  will  be  useful  in  the  courts  as  standards  of  loyalty  or 
patriotism,  in  religious  affairs  as  standards  of  "ortho- 
doxy, ' '  and  in  the  schools,  for  now  there  will,  of  course,  be 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      35 

schools,  they  will  be  useful  in  an  intellectual  way  as  a 
means  of  grading  the  intellectual  abilities  of  the  people. 
The  task  of  learning  will  be  very  hard,  and  few  will  attain 
to  mastery.  The  rest  will  be  graded  by  the  distance  they 
are  able  to  travel  on  the  road  to  mastery. 

These  written  customs  and  traditions  will  become  more 
or  less  sacred,  to  be  literally  followed.  This  literalness  will 
give  rise  to  vexatious  questions  of  interpretation.  But  the 
master-intellects  will  become  the  official  interpreters,  and 
they  will  slowly  extend  the  bearings  of  these  writings  until 
the  time  may  come  when  every  practicable  detail  of  life 
will  have  become  subject  to  minute  definition,  with  a  rule 
prescribed  in  the  sacred  or  near-sacred  writings.  The  edu- 
cated man  will  be  the  man  who  knows  the  literature  of 
these  recorded  folkways,  and,  as  in  old  Judea,  it  will  be  said 
of  the  common  man,  ' '  Cursed  is  the  man  who  knows  not  the 
Law." 

But  it  must  not  forgotten  that  all  this  is  but  folkway, 
the  accumulated  folkways  of  the  various  groups  out  of  all 
their  various  pasts.  There  is  no  intelligent  theory  of  life  in 
it,  no  conscious  program,  no  real  science.  These  are  but 
accumulated  "rules  of  thumb"  which,  since  they  have 
never  been  subjected  to  vital  criticism,  have  gradually 
hardened  into  these  fixed  routines  which  reduce  all  life  to 
a  round  of  stated  observances.  The  range  of  life  may  be 
wider  than  under  the  old  oral  customs  of  the  little  group, 
the  scope  of  life  may  be  a  little  broader,  but  the  significance 
of  life  is  just  as  definite  and  unchangeable  as  in  that  older 
order.  There  is  here  no  free  intellectual  life  to  criticise 
custom  by  means  of  ideals  or  to  rescue  practice  from  the 
domain  of  habit.  Authority,  written  in  the  books  and 
made  sacred  by  hoary  tradition,  controls  all  the  vital  con- 
cerns of  life. 

The  School. — Since  this  Oriental  type  of  society  is  too 


36  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

extended  and  too  complex  to  be  "taken  on"  by  the  average 
individual  in  the  common  processes  of  experience,  the 
process  of  education  requires  a  new  piece  of  machinery. 
The  school  comes  into  existence.  This  means  that  written 
books  are  studied,  a  special  class  of  teachers  develops,  les- 
sons are  set,  hours  are  spent  in  study,  other  hours  in  reci- 
tation, examinations  are  passed  or  failed — the  whole  series 
of  events  so  well  known  in  our  modern  world  goes  on.  The 
best  illustration  of  this  is  seen  in  the  old  Chinese  system, 
where  its  full  artificiality  and  remoteness  from  actual  life 
appear.  Here  the  school  inculcated  the  tradition,  the 
teacher  was  the  real  statesman,  and  the  scholar  the  up- 
holder of  the  permanent  folkways.  The  method  was  mem- 
orizing and  repetition.  Fixed  forms  of  expression  were 
practiced  until  they  became  utterly  automatic,  and  the  mind 
was  slowly  tortured  into  complete  conformity  with  the  an- 
cient patterns.  But  few  could  go  far  in  such  a  system. 
The  children  were  scattered  all  along  the  years,  only  a  few 
remaining  to  the  very  end,  to  justify  the  ways  of  institu- 
tions to  the  coming  generations.  The  old-time  school  repre- 
sents the  climax  of  ingenuity  in  setting  up  the  conditions 
of  intellectual  "struggle  for  existence"  in  which  many  are 
called  but  few  chosen. 

Dominant  Influences. — The  influences  of  custom  domi- 
nate all  activities  on  this  Oriental  level;  and  this  really 
means  the  influences  of  religion.  In  many  instances,  per- 
haps in  most,  such  a  nation  conceives  itself  as  a  "chosen 
people,"  a  "central  kingdom,"  or  something  of  the  sort. 
Custom  and  religion  support  the  doctrine  "Whatever  is,  is 
right,"  and  economic  and  political  institutions  in  turn 
support  religion  and  custom.  The  past  is  sacred ;  the  pres- 
ent and  the  future  must  "copy  fair  the  past."  In  this 
way  these  larger  folkways  become  merely  blind  alleys,  lanes 
with  no  outlet,  into  which  countless  millions  of  the  peoples 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      37 

of  the  earth  have  wandered.  There  is  no  real  hope  in  these 
folkways,  for  they  reach  an  inflexible  limit  of  growth  along 
all  lines.  Nothing  but  some  profound  shock, — such  as  has 
recently  come  to  China, — the  shock  of  some  great,  progres- 
sive civilization,  can  shake  them  loose  from  their  fixed 
ways  and  give  them  the  vision  of  a  new  social  order. 

The  failure  of  such  social  organizations  lies  in  this :  they 
developed  many  "rules  of  thumb"  of  admirable  value,  but 
they  merely  accumulated  them.  They  never  developed  the 
power  to  criticise  them,  to  reorganize  them,  to  make  the  new 
a  means  of  escape  from  the  old.  That  is  to  say,  they  never 
developed  a  theory  of  society  by  means  of  which  to  criticise 
their  old  practices.  Hence  they  had  no  possible  means  of 
criticising  their  accumulations  of  ideas  and  systems.  They 
became  the  victims  of  this  mere  accumulation  of  rules  and 
systems,  like  some  old  householder  whose  attic  is  filled 
with  all  sorts  of  ancient,  unusable  implements  and  tools. 
Progress  consists  not  merely  in  getting  more  implements; 
it  consists  in  throwing  away  some  of  the  old  ones.  But 
this  must  be  done  not  at  random,  but  with  actual  regard  to 
the  uses  of  the  tools  that  are  kept.  This  involves  a  type  of 
critical  intelligence  not  common  in  the  world  and  prac- 
tically unknown  in  the  folkway  stages  of  experience. 

Education  among  the  Hebrews. — Concrete  illustration 
of  this  Oriental  type  of  education  may  be  found  in  many 
nations,  both  modern  and  ancient.  But  in  the  further 
course  of  this  discussion  we  shall  come  upon  certain  great 
contributions  from  the  Hebrew  people,  and  the  Hebrews 
offer  an  excellent  example  of  this  level  of  development. 
Hence  we  shall  use  this  nation  for  a  little  further  study  of 
this  type  of  folkway.  Variations  may  be  found  in  Baby- 
lon, India,  China,  Egypt,  and  Persia;  but  these  will 
largely  be  variations  in  detail  and  not  in  essential  prin- 
ciple. 


38  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  Hebrews  began  as  a  number  of  tribes  in  the  deserts 
of  Arabia.  Various  types  of  pressure  forced  them  grad- 
ually into  a  sort  of  federation,  the  Twelve  Tribes  of  Israel, 
by  means  of  which  they  learned  a  sort  of  community  of 
life.  Legends  of  a  common  ancestor  helped  them  in 
this,  and  the  story  of  an  inheritance  which  had  been 
lost,  but  which  they  were  to  find  again,  the  "promised 
land,"  also  helped.  Yet,  despite  these  helps  and  these 
pressures,  they  never  became  a  complete  nation.  For  a 
few  years,  under  David  and  Solomon,  there  was  a  minimum 
of  internal  strife.  But  this  was  merely  a  truce.  Imme- 
diately after  Solomon  the  effort  broke  down  and  the  "na- 
tion" broke  into  two  groups,  the  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel  and 
the  Two  Tribes  of  Judah.  Two  centuries  later  the  larger 
of  the  two  was  swept  out  from  the  currents  of  history,  be- 
coming the  mysterious  Lost  Tribes  of  Israel.  Judah,  of 
the  two  tribes,  alone  remained. 

The  traditions,  or  folkways,  of  these  original  twelve 
tribes  were  preserved  in  the  writings  of  the  remaining 
groups.  Judah  as  a  "nation"  survived  Israel  a  century 
and  a  quarter,  finally  falling  before  the  destructive  forces 
of  westward-moving  empire.  In  the  years  of  the  ' '  Captiv- 
ity" they  sat  down  by  the  waters  of  Babylon  and  "remem- 
bered Jerusalem."  These  memories  turned  to  their  heroic 
past,  to  the  legends,  traditions,  and  endeavors  of  their  old 
national  life.  And  when  they  returned  to  their  old  homes 
to  live,  those  old  legends  and  traditions  became  for  them 
the  sacred  direction  for  life.  They  were  written  down  in 
Law  and  Prophet  and  Saying  of  the  Wise.  The  extreme 
experiences  of  captivity  and  return  made  all  their  past 
sacred.  "If  I  forget  thee,  0  Jerusalem,  may  my  right 
hand  forget  her  cunning,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof 
of  my  mouth."  The  remnant  that  returned  became  ex- 
treme literalists.  Their  efforts  to  follow  the  Law,  that  is, 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      39 

the  written  Folkways,  are  at  once  the  most  sublime  and  the 
most  pathetic  exhibition  of  blind  moral  heroism  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  human  race.  For  five  hundred  years  after  the 
return  from  captivity  lawyers,  priests,  scribes,  and  rabbis 
were  busy  organizing,  editing,  and  interpreting  these  mate- 
rials of  the  old  traditions.  Each  new  item  thus  established 
bound  the  people  just  so  much  more  rigidly  within  the 
shackles  of  Law;  yet  every  possible  bit  of  such  material 
was  worked  over,  and  if  there  was  any  probable  basis  for 
deciding  that  it  was  authoritative,  it  was  included  within 
the  accepted  sacred  writings  and  the  people  submitted  to 
the  added  burden.  Of  course  there  were  those  who  could 
not  understand  these  interminable  details,  but  they  were 
held  in  contempt  by  the  learned  doctors  of  the  law  who 
spent  their  time  in  thus  binding  "burdens  heavy  to  be 
borne  on  the  backs  of  the  people." 

The  training  of  the  young  under  this  system  was,  of 
course,  formal,  narrow,  and  hostile  to  progress,  foreign  to 
the  modes  of  science,  and  inimical  to  the  development  of 
truth.  But  the  constant  terror  of  national  extinction  pro- 
duced even  from  these  formidable  materials  a  wonderful 
moral  idealism,  a  deep  and  lasting  purpose  which  has  re- 
newed itself  in  the  life  of  the  Jews  through  two  thousand 
years  of  wandering  on  the  face  of  the  earth  and  made  of 
them  a  "peculiar  people,"  indeed. 

Why  did  not  the  Hebrews  Escape  from  their  Folkways? 
— There  was  a  time  in  the  days  just  preceding  and  fol- 
lowing the  Captivity  when,  under  the  leadership  of  the 
prophet  Jeremiah,  the  Jews  came  near  to  reaching  the  level 
of  individual  and  critical  understanding  which  would  have 
meant  freedom  from  the  old  traditions.  Jeremiah  did,  in- 
deed, declare  that  the  authority  of  the  old  folkways  had 
come  to  an  end 1  and  that  the  day  of  a  new  sort  of  social 

i  Jeremiah,  Ch.  31;  vv.  31-34. 


40  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

understanding  and  control  was  at  hand;  but  the  people 
never  understood  this  statement  and  their  further  devel- 
opment was  not  in  the  direction  of  greater  intellectual 
freedom  and  broader  social  organization.  Instead,  they 
sank  more  completely  into  the  f olkway  attitude  and  devel- 
oped all  the  bonds  of  complete  subjection  to  the  past. 
They  surrendered  all  their  life  and  hope  and  purpose  to 
the  control  of  a  literal  custom  and  tradition ;  their  further 
education  took,  not  the  direction  of  science  and  freedom, 
but  of  authority  and  habit.  Why  ? 

Two  reasons  may  be  given.  First,  the  movement  out  of 
the  folkways,  up  through  the  mazes  of  experience  into  the 
first  glimpses  of  intellectual  freedom  and  onward  into  the 
organization  of  a  moral  life  under  the  control  of  intelli- 
gence, is  a  very  long  process,  as  we  shall  see  later  in  the 
case  of  the  Greeks.  And  for  the  Hebrews  the  time  for  this 
was  all  too  short.  They  were  approaching  this  outcome 
slowly  in  the  period  from  Isaiah  to  Jeremiah ;  but  the  com- 
plete overthrow  and  destruction  of  the  nation  by  Babylo- 
nia ended  that  possibility.  The  time  was  too  short  to  ac- 
complish a  result  so  stupendous. 

The  second  reason  may  be  found  in  the  words  of  a 
Hebrew  poet  of  the  Captivity  period:  "By  the  Elvers  of 
Babylon  we  sat  down  and  wept."  When  the  people  found 
themselves  forcibly  expatriated  they  expended  their  ener- 
gies, not  in  intellectualizing  their  situation,  but  in  weeping 
about  it.  They  gave  themselves  up  to  a  very  natural  emo- 
tional overflow;  weeping  absorbed  the  energies  that  might 
have  gone  into  thinking.  There  is  some  evidence  that  their 
minds  had  played  fitfully  around  the  vague  conception  of 
a  world-order  freed  from  the  bald  control  of  mere  tradi- 
tion and  historic  custom  and  organized  and  controlled  by 
intelligence,  but  there  is  little  evidence  that  they  ever  took 
the  notion  seriously  or  gave  more  than  a.  passing  thought 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  ORIENTAL  WORLD      41 

to  it.  That  is  to  say,  though  the  Hebrew  life  was  rich  in 
ideas  and  ideals,  though  the  nation  produced  poets, 
prophets,  sages,  and  religious  leaders  in  profusion,  yet 
never  in  the  period  of  its  national  existence  did  it  produce 
a  critical  philosopher,  an  organized  psychology,  or  logic, — 
the  tools  of  social  reconstruction, — without  which  escape 
from  the  folkways  seems  impossible.  Judaism  produced 
no  Socrates,  or  Plato,  or  Aristotle. 

To  be  sure,  in  later  ages,  after  the  Jews  had  come  into 
contact  with  the  stimulating  intellectual  life  of  Europe, 
they  produced  a  number  of  eminent  critical  philosophers. 
But  in  the  days  of  their  more  isolated  national  life  they 
expressed  their  energies  in  emotion  and  aspiration,  not  in 
the  working  out  of  a  more  fundamental  critical  basis  upon 
which  they  might  reorganize  their  disintegrating  social 
order.  With  intellects  disciplined  to  the  limits  of  pre- 
cision by  their  strenuous  education  in  the  minute  details 
of  the  law,  they  had  become  incapable  of  vital  intellectual 
action  in  the  presence  of  the  great  new  problems  that  arose 
in  their  national  and  social  crises.  They  stood  by  their  old 
folkways  to  the  end,  in  sublime  faith,  and  saw  their  na- 
tional existence  dissolve  before  their  eyes.  They  "strained 
at  the  gnats"  in  their  old  traditions,  and  while  thus  en- 
gaged they  were  destroyed  by  forces  that  lay  outside  their 
understanding,  forces  against  which  they  could  only  pray 
and  hope,  but  about  which  they  had  never  learned  to  think. 

We  shall  meet  one  large  current  from  this  old  life  at  a 
later  stage  in  our  study.  Meanwhile  we  must  turn  to  an- 
other people  and  see  how,  through  bravely  facing  the  con- 
ditions of  existence,  they  won  escape  and  freedom  from 
their  own  folkways  and  opened  the  door  of  freedom  to  the 
whole  world. 


PART  n 

THE  WAY  OUT  OF  THE  FOLKWAYS 


CHAPTER  IV 

EDUCATION   IN   THE   FOLKWAYS   OP   THE   OLDER  ATHENIAN 

WORLD 

WE  have  already  noted  three  aspects  of  the  folkway  life 
of  early  peoples:  the  primitive  life  of  fixed  habit;  the 
tendency  toward  degeneration  of  habit  and  custom ;  and  the 
movements  by  which  a  more  extensive  social  organization 
and  a  more  complete  folkway  system  are  realized  on  the 
Oriental  level.  If  these  were  all  the  tendencies  possible  to 
humanity,  the  history  of  education  were  already  ended. 
But  Man  has  one  more  chance:  he  may  hope  to  escape  al- 
together from  this  primitive  folkway  type  of  living.  How 
one  nation  made  this  escape  we  must  now  see.  The  his- 
tory of  education  beyond  the  folkway  levels  always  begins 
with  Greece.  Greece  is  the  first  nation  in  the  world's  his- 
tory to  escape  from  this  folkway  domination.  All  the 
"progress"  of  the  world  comes  through  this  "escape"  of  the 
Greeks  from  the  fixed  conditions  of  life.  For  this  reason 
it  has  been  said  that  "except  the  blind  forces  of  nature, 
nothing  moves  in  this  world  which  is  not  Greek  in  its 
origin." 

The  Folkways  of  Old  Greece. — We  have  already  seen 
that  all  customs  and  habits  change  imperceptibly.  But 
among  certain  peoples  customs  and  habits  change  very 
rapidly,  yet  without  ever  plunging  the  people  into  the  ulti- 
mate questions  of  philosophy  or  social  theory.  The  old 
Greek  life  emerges  out  of  the  shadows  of  the  Homeric  world 
with  a  certain  fixedness  of  form:  monarchic,  aristocratic, 

45 


46  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

to  some  extent  militaristic.  The  history  of  Greece  for  the 
centuries  between  Homer  and  the  Persian  Wars  is  a  story 
of  the  very  gradual  development  of  democratic  institu- 
tions. On  the  basis  of  the  slavery  of  the  many  the  com- 
paratively few  Greek  citizens  developed  a  remarkable  de- 
gree of  individual  participation  in  the  conduct  of  affairs. 

Beginning  with  the  clan  life  of  the  earliest  period  we 
find  the  gradual  development  of  larger  groups,  the 
"phratry"  or  brotherhood  of  the  clans,  and  the  tribe  with 
its  tribal  territories  and  its  tribal  city,  and  finally,  out  of 
many  struggles,  the  federated  tribes  with  their  central 
state-city,  the  "city-state"  of  Greek  history. 

Out  of  these  developments  came  two  (to  mention  no 
others)  rather  distinctive  types  of  social  organization  and 
life:  Sparta  and  Athens.  Sparta  was  located  in  a  fertile 
valley  and  peopled  by  a  military  race,  warlike,  aristocratic, 
ruling  over  a  native  slave  population  of  tillers  of  the  soil. 
Always  fearful  of  her  slaves  or  her  neighbors,  Sparta  never 
escaped  from  the  dominance  of  the  aristocratic  and  mili- 
taristic parties.  Her  education  was  just  such  as  we  have 
seen  under  the  primitive  folkways:  a  long  and  severe 
training  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  every  weakness  and 
every  fear,  for  Sparta  must  have  soldiers.  Sparta  was  a 
fortified  military  training  establishment.  She  used  the 
whole  of  her  common  life  to  promote  her  education  for 
military  service. 

Athens,  on  the  other  hand,  was  located  near  the  sea. 
Her  people  were  sea-going,  enterprising,  commercial,  demo- 
cratic in  instinct,  artistic  in  their  spirit,  and  progressive  in 
mood.  They  early  turned  their  attention  from  warlike 
conquests  to  commercial  interests.  Hence  they  lost  their 
militaristic  tendencies  and  with  them  their  monarchic  and 
aristocratic  institutions.  Athenian  life  was  never  domi- 
nated by  military  interests.  In  the  same  way,  though  the 


EDUCATION  IN  OLD  ATHENS  47 

Athenian  people  were  always  religious,  they  never  per- 
mitted the  priest  to  become  the  dominant  influence  in  their 
moral  and  civic,  or  even  in  their  religious  life.  Athens 
thus  escaped  the  two  great  barriers  to  freedom  and  devel- 
opment: Militarism  and  Ecclesiasticism.  These  tenden- 
cies toward  democracy,  industry,  commercial  extension,  and 
freedom  continued  with  characteristic  struggles,  but  with 
real  progress,  until  the  Persian  Wars  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, B.C. 

Education  among  the  Earlier  Greeks. — Spartan  educa- 
tion, as  we  have  noted,  tended  to  develop  the  traditional 
and  characteristic  qualities  of  the  soldier.  We  shall  not 
describe  it  here.  A  good  account  of  it  can  be  found  in 
Plutarch's  Life  of  Lycurgus.  It  is  mentioned  here 
again  for  the  purpose  of  pointing  out  the  fact  that  Sparta's 
education  never  rose  above  the  folkway  level ;  it  never  be- 
came intelligent.  This  is  proved  by  this  fact.  After  hun- 
dreds of  years  of  constant  training  in  military  tactics 
Sparta  continued  to  use  the  same  old  systems  of  organiza- 
tion and  attack;  so  that  when  in  the  fourth  century 
Sparta  and  Thebes  fought  for  Grecian  supremacy,  Sparta 
was  overwhelmingly  defeated  because  the  Thebans,  under 
Epaminondas,  used  new  and,  from  the  folkway  point  of 
view,  unfair  methods  of  arranging  their  forces  and  strange, 
unheard-of  methods  of  attack  which  the  Spartans  were 
utterly  unable  to  withstand.  So  intelligence  overthrew 
.fixed  habit.  As  long  as  all  groups  are  on  the  same  folk- 
way  level  victory  must  go  to  the  superior  physical  force. 
Sparta  was  incapable  of  rising  above  this  level.  Thebes 
rose  above  it,  and  Sparta  fell  before  superior  intelligence. 

Athens,  on  the  other  hand,  also  had  her  older  forms  of 
education.  Athens  was  the  most  completely  human  com- 
munity of  the  ancient  world.  The  primitive  folkways  of 
the  Athenians  were  almost  as  definite  as  those  of  the  Spar- 


48  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tans.  But  the  Athenians  were  restless,  wanderers  on  the 
earth,  learners  of  new  things.  Hence  their  folkways  were 
constantly  subject  to  the  influences  of  change,  influences 
too  slight  to  produce  great  crises,  but  important  enough 
and  constant  enough  to  determine  movement  and  develop- 
ment. Still  the  education  of  the  young  was  fixed  in  rather 
narrow  grooves.  It  was  not  public,  as  in  Sparta,  but  it 
was  subject  to  the  closest  supervision  by  the  proper  public 
magistrates.  The  results  must  measure  up  to  certain  pub- 
lic standards.  This  education  could  be  given  in  the  homes, 
but  for  the  most  part  it  was  given  in  certain  institutional 
ways  where  the  children  from  several  homes  came  together. 
The  palaestra  was  a  sort  of  playground-gymnasium  where 
physical  exercises  were  taught,  and  the  didascaleum  was  a 
sort  of  music  school  where  playing  upon  instruments  and 
reading  and  writing  were  taught. 

There  was  some  writing  in  the  sand  with  sticks,  and 
later  upon  wax  tablets  with  a  stylus,  and  finally,  when  the 
students  were  advanced  sufficiently,  upon  parchment  with 
pen  and  ink.  There  was  learning  and  copying  of  texts 
and  verses  from  the  poets,  singing  and  expressing  the 
poems,  and  interpretation  of  the  poetry  studied.  The  ef- 
fort, rather  unconsciously  undertaken,  seems  to  have  been 
to  help  the  boy  to  come  to  know  the  life  he  was  beginning 
to  share,  the  life  of  the  city  in  which  his  life  was  to  be 
spent.  The  "pedagogue"  of  old  Athenian  education  was 
a  mature  man,  though  a  slave,  whose  task  it  was  to  lead  the 
boy  through  the  streets  of  the  city,  not  merely  to  and  from 
the  playground.  The  moral  and  civic  significance  of  this 
is  very  great.  There  was  no  school,  even  in  old  Athens, 
as  we  think  of  school,  a  place  apart  from  the  actual  life  of 
the  city  where  abstract,  even  irrelevant  lessons  are  studied 
out  of  books  that  not  even  the  teacher  can  fully  under- 
stand. No.  Education  in  old  Athens  retained  most  of  the 


EDUCATION  IN  OLD  ATHENS  49 

genuineness  and  immediateness  of  the  older  folkway  re- 
sults. When  a  boy  finished  his  years  of  training  and  ex- 
perience in  playground,  gymnasium,  and  music  school,  and 
his  explorations  of  the  city  under  the  guidance  of  the  peda- 
gogue, he  was  prepared  to  enter  into  the  activities  of  the 
adult  members  of  the  social  world.  He  was  ready  to  under- 
stand the  "Oath  of  Allegiance"  that  he  took;  he  was  ready 
to  stand  up  before  the  citizens  of  Athens  and  take  this  vow : 

"I  will  never  disgrace  these  sacred  arms  nor  desert  my  com- 
panions in  the  ranks.  I  will  fight  for  temples  and  public  prop- 
erty, both  alone  and  with  many.  I  will  transmit  my  fatherland, 
not  only  not  less,  but  greater  and  better,  than  it  was  transmitted 
to  me.  I  will  obey  the  magistrates  who  may  at  any  time  be  in 
power.  I  will  observe  both  the  existing  laws  and  those  which 
the  people  may  unanimously  hereafter  make,  and  if  any  person 
seek  to  annul  the  laws  or  to  set  them  at  naught,  will  do  my  best 
to  prevent  him  and  will  defend  them  alone  and  with  many.  I 
will  honor  the  religion  of  my  fathers.  And  I  call  to  witness 
Agraulos,  Enyalios,  Ares,  Zeus,  Thallo,  and  Auxo  and  Hege- 
mone."  1 

Educational  Theory  in  Old  Greece. — It  is  necessary  to 
insist  that  this  Old  Greek  Education  was  still  essentially 
of  the  folkway  type.  It  was  not  intelligently  developed; 
there  was  no  elaborate  theory  underlying  it.  It  had  grown 
up  and  developed  out  of  old  customary  practices,  and  it  was 
of  the  nature  of  "rule  of  thumb."  This  is  shown  by  the 
naivete  of  even  such  a  writer  as  Thucydides  who,  though 
he  belongs  to  an  age  later  than  the  end  of  the  Old  Greek 
period  (but  before  Euclid),  still  does  not  know  simple 
mathematical  principles.  There  was,  indeed,  no  social 
theory  in  this  earlier  period.  There  was  the  beginning  of 
a  primitive  speculation,  but  it  was  the  "philosophy"  of 
physical  nature.  Human  knowledge  began  as  far  as  pos- 

i  For  explanation  of  these  gods  see  Monroe :  "Source  Book,"  p.  33. 


50  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

sible  from  man  himself.  Philosophy  began  in  speculations 
about  the  heavens  and  the  structure  and  nature  of  the 
world.  It  was  in  a  later  period  that  "Socrates  brought 
philosophy  down  from  heaven  to  dwell  among  men."  The 
utter  lack  of  conscious  theory  of  either  social  organization 
or  education  is  shown  in  the  later  period  when,  old  customs 
and  institutions  having  become  outgrown  and  uninhabi- 
table, the  people  are  completely  at  a  loss  as  to  which  way 
to  turn.  Life  can  go  on  under  the  folkways  without  con- 
scious theory,  since  practice  and  habit  are  fixed  and  no 
questions  are  permitted.  But  when  customs  and  habits 
fail,  when  old  practices  become  empty  if  not  ridiculous  and 
social  life  faces  the  chaos  of  systems  destroyed  and  institu- 
tions broken  down,  what  shall  society  do  without  some 
theory  of  the  right  social  order,  or  at  least  some  theory  of 
the  right  way  to  go  about  the  reconstruction  of  order? 

Social  life  demands  order,  system,  institution;  we  are 
lost  without  these.  But  social  life  also  demands  growth, 
change,  development;  we  die  without  these.  Social  order 
developed  into  fixed  institutions  can  do  without  theories 
of  social  order,  for  habits  and  customs  work  best  when 
theory  is  absent.  But  when,  inevitably,  habits  and  customs 
break  down  and  social  organization  has,  for  a  season,  a 
chance  to  grow  into  new  forms,  then  social  theory  is  indis- 
pensable if  the  social  order  is  to  be  saved  from  destruction. 
We  must  now  follow  the  course  of  events  in  which  the  old 
Athenian  folkways  broke  down  under  the  shocks  of  con- 
flict. "We  must  see  the  years  of  chaos  and  confusion,  the 
strenuous  efforts  to  restore  social  organization  on  the  basis 
of  new  social  theorizings,  the  failure  to  accomplish  this  re- 
sult through  overwhelming  pressures  from  outside,  and  the 
bequeathing  to  the  world  at  large  of  the  tragic  experience 
of  the  Greeks,  out  of  which  have  come  all  our  world-devel- 
opments in  politics,  science,  philosophy,  and  education. 


CHAPTER  V     * 

THE  BREAKDOWN  OF  THE  ATHENIAN  FOLKWAYS 

WE  have  already  seen  three  general  and  obvious  aspects 
of  the  f olkway  world :  the  life  of  stagnate  habit,  the  possi- 
bility of  degeneration  toward  a  more  completely  physical 
existence,  and  the  rise  of  a  more  extensive  world  on  the 
Oriental  level.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  no  one  of  these,  nor 
all  of  them  together,  holds  any  real  promise  for  the  growth 
of  civilization  and  the  development  of  culture.  We  find 
the  first  genuine  promise  of  such  advance  in  the  Athenian 
world.  Athens  gave  to  the  world  the  first  suggestion  of 
the  possibility  of  a  social  order,  not  of  the  folkway  type, 
in  which  intelligence  should  play  a  real  part.  Here  we 
find  the  first  real  break  with  the  primitive  folkways.  We 
must  now  discover  the  elements  released  in  this  breakdown 
of  the  primitive  life  of  custom  and  habit. 

Human  conduct,  both  social  and  individual,  seems  to 
express  itself  in  three  main  modes.1  The  first  of  these  we 
have  already  discussed,  the  mode  of  Habit  and  Custom. 
Custom  is  the  social  structure,  habit  the  individual  expres- 
sion and  acceptation  of  custom.  When  the  long-accumu- 
lating customs  of  the  group  have  become  the  full  possession 
of  the  individual,  he  has  become  completely  habituated. 
Habit,  custom,  folkway,  all  stand  for  certainty,  for  the 
mechanical,  the  fixed,  the  satisfactory,  the  final  in  conduct. 
They  represent  the  group  and  individual  achievement  crys- 
tallized to  date.  The  group  is  a  complete  structure,  the 
individual  a  walking  bundle  of  habit.  The  latter  does  not 

iSee  Introduction  in  Thomas'  "Source  Book  for  Social  Origins." 

51 


52 

think ;  his  thinking  has  all  been  done  for  him  and  it  is  pre- 
supposed in  his  possession  of  habits.  He  lives  by  his  social 
and  personal  habits,  by  the  customs  and  traditions  of  the 
group,  not  by  anything  that  can  rightly  be  called  "intelli- 
gence. ' ' 

The  second  of  these  social  modes  is  Crisis.  "We  have  al- 
ready seen  how  habit  changes  by  imperceptible  degrees 
under  the  slow  pressures  of  changing  environmental  con- 
ditions. It  has  been  hinted,  also,  that  more  severe  changes 
are  possible;  that  such  severe  conditions  might  arise  as  to 
compel  radical  readjustments  in  the  structure  of  the  group 
in  its  habits  and  customs.  Such  a  severe  crisis  would 
mean  the  breakdown,  more  or  less  complete,  of  the  folk- 
ways, the  failure  of  customary  adjustments,  uncertainty, 
chance  for  innovations,  for  development  and  growth.  It 
would  mean  the  rise  of  whatever  intelligence  the  group 
latently  possessed,  for  it  would  raise  the  problems  of  actual 
social  order,  problems  requiring  analysis,  experiment,  in- 
vention, if  the  group  were  capable  of  these  things.  At  any 
rate,  it  would  mean  a  complete  break  from  the  certainties 
of  the  folkway  world  into  the  uncertainties  of  chaos  or  of 
intellectual  struggle,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  habit 
is  the  certain  aspect  of  experience,  intelligence  the  uncer- 
tain. 

What  could  produce  such  crises?  There  are  three  gen- 
eral sources  of  this  experience.  First,  some  change  in  the 
natural  environment — climatic  changes,  earthquakes,  vol- 
canic eruptions,  failures  of  food  supplies,  epidemics,  and 
the  like;  whatever  tends  to  destroy  the  fixed  world  within 
which  accustomed  habits  have  been  depended  upon.  Sec- 
ond, some  change  in  the  social  world — pressures  of  popula- 
tion that  are  overwhelming,  migrations  of  new  peoples  into 
the  range  of  the  group,  devastating  wars,  and  the  like. 
Third,  the  rise  within  the  group  of  some  extraordinary, 


BREAKDOWN  OF  ATHENIAN  FOLKWAYS      53 

unexplainable,  and  non-conforming  individual,  a  natural 
leader  who  breaks  through  the  old  ways  and  organizes  new 
ones  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  native  energies.  Any  one  of 
these  three  types  of  crises  is  likely  to  come  to  any  people 
at  any  time. 

What  shall  be  done  by  a  group  in  the  presence  of  such  a 
complete  crisis?  Mr.  Huxley  has  pointed  out  the  three 
courses  open  to  the  animal  whose  life  has  been  profoundly 
disturbed  by  environmental  changes.  It  may  perish;  it 
may  migrate;  it  may  reconstruct  its  modes  of  life  to  meet 
the  new  conditions.  These  same  possibilities  confront  the 
group  whose  folkways  have  been  broken  down.  It  may 
disintegrate  and  perish,  socially  at  least ;  it  may  move  to  a 
new  habitat  where  it  can  reestablish  its  old  modes  of  living ; 
it  may  face  the  new  situation,  the  new  conditions,  and  make 
its  life  over  in  such  radical  degree  as  will  make  possible  its 
continuance  in  the  old  location.  But  this  last  solution  may 
compel  the  development  of  analytic  intelligence. 

This  brings  us  to  the  third  mode:  Reconstruction,  re- 
adjustment to  changed  internal  or  external  conditions  of 
group  life.  This  involves  the  conscious  and  intelligent 
construction  of  new  habits  to  meet  the  new  conditions,  in- 
vention of  new  social  customs  and  attitudes,  attention  to 
elements  of  experience  and  conditions  hitherto  unnoticed, 
analysis  of  these  conditions  and  elements,  and  development 
of  a  new  world  of  practice,  emotion,  and  either  explicit  or 
implicit  philosophy.  In  short,  it  brings  us  to  the  necessity 
of  the  development  of  theory. 

Let  us  note  its  significance  a  little  more  fully.  Crisis  in 
the  folkways  precipitates  the  problems  of  reconstruction. 
This  means  the  search  for  the  theory,  probably  hitherto 
unconsciously  held,  that  underlay  the  old  habits  and  cus- 
toms, the  determination  as  to  whether  that  old  theory  will 
suffice  for  the  new  structure  of  life,  the  uncovering  of  the 


54  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

various  elements  of  practice,  feeling,  and  attitude  that  have 
held  together  and  supported  the  old  habits  and  customs, 
the  invention  of  new  attitudes,  methods,  and  even  aims  for 
the  readjustment  of  the  world  of  action,  finding  new  bonds 
to  take  the  place  of  old  customs,  and  the  actual  working 
out  of  the  new  conditions  under  which  constructive  action 
can  go  on,  effort  can  accomplish  things,  and  life  itself  can 
seem  worth  while. 

All  this  means  that  the  effort  toward  reconstruction  is 
an  effort  to  get  back  into  a  world  of  certainty  wherein  con- 
trol is  assured,  i.e.,  back  into  a  new  sort  of  folkway.  The 
history  of  the  race  is  thus  seen  to  be  a  series  of  struggles, 
that  swing  from  one  level  of  habit  through  crises  and  re- 
constructions to  new  levels  of  habit.  But  on  the  new  levels, 
if  these  have  been  won  by  real  struggle,  the  life  of  the  race 
is  richer,  a  little  more  intelligent,  a  little  more  worth  while. 
Out  of  all  these  steps  upward,  these  complications  of  folk- 
way,  crisis,  and  reconstruction  of  new  folkway,  slowly 
emerge  the  new  worlds  of  action,  emotion,  and  civilization, 
with  the  enlarging  understandings  of  experience,  with  the 
increased  powers  and  controls  that  go  with  these  larger 
worlds.  Intelligence  develops;  knowledge  grows  and  ac- 
cumulates; resources,  physical,  moral,  and  spiritual,  are 
discovered  and  explored.  Life  is  enriched,  refined,  and 
defined.  Abuses  appear,  become  sacred  through  custom, 
are  criticised  by  the  liberated,  and  are  eliminated  peace- 
fully or  through  the  shocks  of  war.  But  out  of  it  all  a 
larger  life  emerges  and  human  nature  takes  on  new  quali- 
ties and  finds  its  higher  good  in  new  directions. 

The  Crisis  in  Athens. — This  first  developed  in  the  actual 
experiences  of  the  world  in  the  life  of  the  Athenian  Greeks. 
Athens  in  the  days  preceding  the  Persian  conflicts  was  a 
world  grown  very  complete  through  long  development, 
while  at  the  same  time  there  existed  an  undercurrent  of 


BREAKDOWN  OF  ATHENIAN  FOLKWAYS      55 

unrest,  foretelling  the  possibility  of  some  decisive  social 
crisis.  The  long  struggles  in  Athens  for  the  development 
of  democratic  government  had  largely  undermined  the  re- 
spect for  old  customs  and  traditions  that  still  held  Sparta 
bound  fast  to  the  past.  The  rise  of  such  expressions  of  the 
national  life  as  lyric  poetry,  as  against  the  epic,  showed 
the  stirrings  deep  within  of  the  individual  spirit.  The 
growth  of  a  critical  philosophy  of  the  physical  universe, 
while  it  had  not  yet  directly  touched  the  problems  of  the 
social  life,  had  undermined  the  older  traditional  founda- 
tions of  the  universe,  the  mythical  stories  of  creations,  etc., 
and  had  laid  the  basis  for  the  eventual  undermining  of  the 
social  world  as  well.  The  growth  of  knowledge  of  nature 
and  society  had  reached  the  explosion-point;  all  that  was 
needed  was  the  fire,  or  the  shock,  to  set  it  off. 

Then  came  the  tremendous  impact  of  the  two  great 
world-orders  of  that  time:  Persia  against  Greece,  the 
Oriental  civilization  against  the  Occidental;  the  East 
against  the  new  West.  After  two  thousand  years  of  con- 
flict such  impacts  are  still  in  our  own  day  profoundly  in- 
fluential of  change.  What  must  this  first  great  conflict 
have  meant  to  Greece?  It  actually  meant  the  complete 
breakdown  of  her  primitive  folkways.  This  was  the  climax 
of  several  hundred  years  of  general  tendency.  It  came 
to  its  inevitable  conclusion  in  Athens.  It  liberated  the 
minds  of  the  people  from  the  lingering  controls  of  old  cus- 
toms and  traditions;  it  brought  on  the  first  great  disillu- 
sionment of  the  human  mind.  "Our  folkways  are  not  the 
way  of  living;  they  are  simply  a  way,  and  who  can  tell 
whether  they  are  better  than  some  other  way?" 

The  breakdown  of  folkway  institutions  means  the  break- 
down of  personal  and  individual  habit,  the  release  of  ener- 
gies that  may  run  riot,  even  to  destruction,  the  loosening 
of  all  the  common  bonds  of  established  social  order,  and 


56 

the  emergence  of  the  feeling  of  individual  freedom,  even 
license.  "This  is  now  a  free  country  and  I  can  do  as  I 
please."  This  is  especially  the  way  in  which  such  an  ex- 
perience is  likely  to  come  to  the  young.  On  the  part  of  the 
older  members  of  the  group,  especially  the  civic  and  moral 
leaders,  such  a  breakdown  brings  the  fear  of  social  disin- 
tegration, of  anarchy  and  decay.  That  is  to  say,  such  an 
experience  releases  emotions,  feelings,  attitudes  of  mind, 
hopes  and  fears  and  the  like,  most  or  all  of  which  are  new 
in  the  group  life. 

But  this  means  that  such  crises  bring  about  conditions 
under  which  the  mind  actually  grows.  Under  fixed  habit 
and  custom  mental  life  does  not  properly  exist.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  folkway  is  a  mechanism.  But  in  the  social 
crisis  the  social  mechanism  has  broken  down,  and  intelli- 
gence must  appear  if  the  group  is  to  be  saved  from  destruc- 
tion. Old  traditions  still  persist,  but  they  are  denied  by 
new  conditions  or  ignored  by  the  newly  released  individual 
energies.  Problems  are  everywhere.  What  shall  the  out- 
come be  ?  Shall  it  be  actual  destruction  of  the  group,  dis- 
integration of  the  group  into  so  many  atoms  of  unre- 
strained individualism,  the  recapture  of  the  group  by  some 
old  folkway  resurgent,  or  the  swinging  of  the  group, 
through  the  emergence  of  intelligence,  up  to  some  new 
level  of  organized  living?  The  future  must  answer  these 
questions.  Athenian  intelligence  faced  them  squarely. 

The  Crisis  as  an  Educational  Problem. — Plate  repre- 
sents this  critical  social  and  educational  situation  very 
clearly  in  the  dialogue  called  "  Euthydemus. "  In  the  old 
days  fathers  had  little  or  no  difficulty  about  the  careers  of 
their  sons;  such  questions  were  settled  by  the  customs  of 
the  folkways.  But  in  the  troublous  times  of  the  crisis 
Crito  voices  the  insistent  difficulty.  Old  types  of  educa- 
tion have  broken  down.  In  their  places  have  come  "those 


BREAKDOWN  OF  ATHENIAN  FOLKWAYS      57 

who  pretend  to  teach  others,"  but  these  new  teachers  all 
seem  to  be  ''such  outrageous  beings"  that  in  despair  Crito 
comes  to  Socrates.  His  question  is  the  most  fundamental 
question  of  the  age:  "I  have  often  told  you,  Socrates, 
that  I  am  in  constant  difficulty  about  my  two  sons.  What 
am  I  to  do  with  them  ? ' ' 

This  is  more  than  the  question  of  one  father  in  his  deal- 
ing with  two  sons.  It  is  the  question  of  one  generation 
dealing  with  the  future  of  the  nation.  "I  am  in  constant 
uncertainty  about  the  whole  future  of  Athens.  What  shall 
we  do  about  it?"  And  the  question  is  fundamental. 
The  folkways  are  gone;  the  individual  stands  forth  unre- 
strained, undisciplined,  ignorant  of  life,  contemptuous  of 
old  controls.  This  is  a  new  power  in  human  life,  this  in- 
dividual, the  most  precious  power  ever  uncovered.  But  it 
is  likewise  a  new  danger.  Will  he  destroy  the  works  of 
the  centuries?  If  so,  will  he  at  the  same  time  destroy 
himself?  The  world's  hope  may  rest  in  him;  but  has  the 
past  no  value?  And  is  his  own  value  in  his  undisciplined 
strength,  or  will  he  find  a  truer  value  when  he  shall  have 
learned  how  to  use  the  past  in  making  his  own  energies 
more  accurate,  more  definite,  more  sure?  These  are  the 
questions  of  the  future.  Humanity  finds  itself  rather  sud- 
denly released  from  the  traditional  and  customary  bondage 
of  the  centuries.  It  must  try  itself  out  in  this  new  free- 
dom. What  is  human  nature  ?  That  must  be  investigated, 
its  remote  characteristics  explored,  its  larger  significance 
determined.  What  is  physical  nature?  This,  too,  must 
be  searched  out.  It  will  take  years,  ages.  Indeed,  after 
two  thousand  years  we  are  just  getting  fairly  started  on 
this  mighty  adventure. 

But  in  the  meantime  actual  problems  confront  the  citi- 
zen of  Athens.  The  world  is  in  chaos.  What  shall  the  citi- 
zen, the  lover  of  his  city,  do  ?  All  sorts  of  men  will  appear 


58  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  the  course  of  this  larger  history,  including  men  who 
will  be  able  to  live  in  the  midst  of  social  chaos  without  much 
awareness  of  the  events  transpiring  about  them.  But  this 
experience  of  Athens  is  new  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
The  ages  to  come  may  work  out  many  answers  for  just 
such  problems,  many  suggestions  for  periods  of  unrest. 
But  in  this  first  period  of  confusion  an  immediate  answer 
of  some  sort  is  needed.  Who'  can  supply  it  ? 

Even  at  this  early  date  not  one  answer  alone,  but  five  at 
least  were  offered,  not  all  at  once,  but  within  the  next  cen- 
tury. Two  of  them  came  immediately,  the  other  three  in 
later  years.  These  five  proposed  solutions  of  this  crucial 
situation  in  the  life  of  Athens  represent  a  wide  range  of 
responses,  from  that  of  the  unprogressive  habit  that  would 
have  the  world  turn  back  to  old  practices  to  the  most 
fundamental  intelligence  that  would  urge  the  race  on  to- 
ward undreamed-of  things.  We  must  take  up  these  five 
proposed  answers  in  regular  order.  In  our  grasp  of  them 
we  shall  find  the  fundamental  clues  to  the  whole  interpreta- 
tion of  history.  We  shall  not  all  agree  in  our  valuation  of 
these  answers.  In  fact  these  answers  will  classify  us  as  to 
our  own  social  outlooks  and  our  educational  programs. 
Perhaps  that  will  be  their  real  value.  At  any  rate,  history 
is  to  be  for  us  a  teacher  as  well  as  a  subject  of  study.  We 
turn  to  these  answers  given  in  Athens. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FIRST   ANSWER:      THE   ATTITUDE  OF   THE 
CONSERVATIVES 

WE  have  seen  how  Athens,  rising  up  through  many  cen- 
turies of  folkway  development,  found  herself  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  fifth  century  in  the  midst  of  an  all  but  com- 
plete breakdown  of  these  old  folkway  controls.  Confu- 
sion, disillusionment,  and  anarchy  seemed  to  be  her  des- 
tiny.1 If,  underneath  all  this  confusion,  the  common  life  of 
daily  activity  still  went  on  in  the  grip  of  habit  too  strong 
to  be  lightly  broken,  yet,  on  the  surface  at  least,  customs 
of  centuries  fell  away.  Individuals  found  themselves  freed 
from  the  usual  restraints,  and  old  social  controls  in  family, 
industry,  and  civic  authority  failed  to  meet  the  situation 
completely.  Athens  found  herself,  as  Carlyle  might  say, 
"socially  naked,"  the  protecting  clothes  of  social  custom 
gone.  There  was,  of  course,  no  escape  from  this  experi- 
ence if  civilization  were  ever  to  rise  above  the  level  of  the 
folkways.  None  the  less,  such  an  experience  must  produce, 
whether  in  society  or  in  the  individual,  profound  shock. 

What  shall  be  done  about  it?  How  shall  society  be  re- 
constituted? How  shall  the  rising  generations  be  edu- 
cated? How  shall  the  dangerous  energies  released  in  this 
experience  be  organized  for  larger  social  tasks  and  pur- 
poses? How  shall  rampant  individuals  be  restrained? 
How  shall  the  future  be  made  secure?  But,  also,  how 
shall  the  constructive  energies  released  in  this  experience 
be  organized  into  the  social  life?  How  shall  the  tremen- 

i  Cf.  "Story  of  Alcibiades." 

59 


60  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

dons  possibilities  of  individual  freedom  and  individual  con- 
tribution be  realized?  What  shall  society  become?  But, 
most  of  all,  what  shall  education  become  under  these 
strange  new  conditions?  As  stated  above,  at  least  five 
answers  were  offered  to  this  problem. 

The  Answer  of  the  Conservatives. — In  Athens,  as  al- 
ways, there  existed  a  great  body  of  conservative  people  to 
whom  this  age  of  confusion  brought  profound  dismay. 
These  were  of  the  older  social  tradition,  opponents  of  the 
long  democratic  movement,  essential  aristocrats.  They 
were  naturally  timid  of  mind.  They  had  privileges  which 
seemed  to  be  threatened  by  these  changes.  They  were  set 
in  their  ways  and  change  was  utterly  unwelcome  to  them. 

Shocked  by  the  disrespect  for  old  customs,  the  "immorali- 
ties" of  the  times  which  seem  to  them  nothing  short  of 
insanity,  they  seriously  proposed  that  Athens  must  under- 
take to  get  rid  of  the  disturbers  (among  whom  was  Socra- 
tes), and  then  return  and  rebuild  the  folkways  that  were 
gone.  This  is  the  first  solution  of  the  problem.  Perhaps 
the  most  graphic  account  of  the  state  of  mind  of  this  party 
is  to  be  found  in  "The  Clouds"  of  Aristophanes.  In  this 
play  the  age  of  confusion  is  represented  as  being  steeped 
in  all  sorts  of  destructive  immoralities.  Morality  and  re- 
ligion are  both  subverted  and  made  to  pander  to  the  bauble 
reputations  and  financial  gains  of  the  Sophists.  Ancient 
moral  ideas  having  real  social  significance  are  replaced  by 
modern  selfish  ideals.  Intelligence  has  become  completely 
superficial,  easily  developed,  easily  changed;  anything  can 
be  taught  to  anybody  for  an  adequate  consideration.  Over 
against  this  Aristophanes  sets  the  values  of  the  old  educa- 
tion : 1  Justice,  temperance,  hardiness  of  body  and  mind, 

1  The  student  should  read  these  contrasts  of  the  "new"  and  the 
"old"  educations.  See  Monroe,  "Source  Book  of  the  Hist,  of  Ed.," 
pp.  82-4. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  CONSERVATIVES      61 

respect  for  age,  "the  education  which  nurtured  the  men 
who  fought  at  Marathon."  Is  it  possible  to  return  and 
rebuild  the  old  social  system  and  the  old  education?  To 
the  conservative  man  this  seems  the  only  sane  solution  of  a 
problem  that  ought  never  to  have  arisen  in  the  first  place. 
Impossibility  of  the  Conservative  Program. — Desirable 
as  such  a  program  may  seem  from  many  points  of  view, 
a  very  little  thought  convinces  us  of  its  utter  impossibility. 
Socially,  the  old  structure  of  society  is  gone.  The  old  in- 
stitutions are  either  left  far  behind  or  are  regarded  in 
utterly  new  ways,  and  the  most  energetic  members  of  the 
community  have  escaped  from  this  old  respect  for  custom. 
There  is  no  likelihood  that  they  will  ever  be  recaptured  or 
that  they  will  voluntarily  return.  Indeed,  they  cannot  re- 
turn. Psychologically,  it  is  impossible  to  forget  these  new 
and  profoundly  convincing  experiences  of  freedom  and  to 
reinstate  the  old  habits  of  bondage  to  custom.  Men  have 
tried  that  and  they  have  failed.  What  has  been  done  must 
be  met,  not  by  going  backward,  but  by  going  forward. 
There  is  danger,  of  course,  in  going  forward.  Much  that 
has  lasting  social  worth  is  likely  to  be  ignored  and  left  be- 
hind in  the  forward  movement ;  much  was  ignored  and  left 
behind.  Yet  society  must  be  saved  in  some  way ;  and  since 
the  aristocrats  and  conservatives  of  the  times  could  do 
little  but  wail  about  the  "good  old  times"  and  ridicule  the 
new  movements,  they  are  quite  as  much  to  blame  for  the 
excesses  of  the  later  times  as  are  the  undisciplined  expo- 
nents of  those  later  times.  The  new  age,  the  new  institu- 
tions, the  new  social  order,  the  new  education,  must  come 
to  Athens.  These  ought  to  be  developed  through  the  co- 
operation of  the  conservative  elements  and  the  radical  ele- 
ments. The  wisdom  of  the  past  and  the  impulse  and  initia- 
tive of  the  present  ought  to  collaborate  in  the  construction 
of  the  new  social  and  educational  world,  consciously,  inten- 


62  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tionally,  intelligently.  This  must  happen;  it  does  really 
happen;  but  neither  side  of  the  argument  either  admits  it 
or  even  knows  it.  Each  seems  to  go  its  own  way. 

The  Conservation  of  Old  Social  Custom  and  Habit.— 
Despite  the  profound  shock  to  Greek  life  caused  by  this 
crisis  of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries,  despite  the  fact 
that  society  cannot  go  backward,  if  it  is  to  go  on  to  higher 
levels  of  civilization,  despite  the  fears  of  the  conservatives 
who  saw  only  ruin  ahead  for  their  city,  despite  the  con- 
tempt which,  as  we  shall  see,  the  Sophists  felt  for  old  cus- 
toms and  habits,  much  of  that  old  habit  and  custom  still 
persisted.  The  work  of  the  world  went  on.  Men  ate, 
slept,  toiled,  or  idled;  they  married;  children  were  born 
and  grew  up  in  some  sort  of  family  and  community  life; 
some  sort  of  religious  rituals  continued;  social  order  in 
some  measure  existed.  Deep  under  all  the  waves  on  the 
surface  of  the  social  sea  the  quiet  tides  of  custom  and  habit 
roll  onward.  These  social  tides  are  not  meaningless,  they 
do  not  merely  repeat  the  old.  They  conserve  the  old,  even 
when  we  think  that  older  element  has  been  entirely  left  be- 
hind. Out  from  these  struggles  of  the  Greek  world  emerges 
the  substantial  structure  of  a  common  life  which  persists 
through  the  Roman  period,  through  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
on  into  our  own  times.  It  is  true  that  changes  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  social  world  have  always  gradually  effected 
changes  in  the  deeper  currents  of  social  life.  And  occa- 
sionally some  profound  revolution  has  shaken  through  and 
through  the  whole  body  of  society,  until  even  the  common 
mass  has  thrown  off  the  customs  of  centuries  and  taken  on 
the  new  organization  of  life.  But  usually  there  has  been 
a  gradual  reaccommodation  afterwards.  The  old  has  re- 
asserted itself  somewhat,  the  new  has  yielded  a  little  of  its 
arrogance,  and  some  degree  of  historical  continuity  actually 
obtains. 


THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  CONSERVATIVES      63 

No  social  or  educational  program  can  succeed,  as  we  shall 
see,  that  ignores  this  substratum  of  age-old  habit  in  the 
common  life.  The  answers  that  we  have  yet  to  discuss 
give  promise  of  being  successful  or  of  failing  just  to  the 
extent  that  they  recognize  this  most  fundamental  social  and 
educational  factor.  Habit  is  one  of  the  two  most  profound 
characteristics  of  human  nature.  Its  significance  for  social 
order,  for  social  progress,  for  educational  stagnation  and 
development,  must  not  be  forgotten.  The  conservative 
party  in  Athens  made  impossible  proposals  when  they  sug- 
gested that  Athens  should  return  to  the  times  and  manners 
of  the  old  folkways.  But  in  that  proposal  there  was 
wrapped  up  this  other  profound  and  not  impossible,  but 
very  necessary,  fact :  that  society  lives  and  moves  in  a  great 
world  of  habit,  and  that  however  profoundly  that  world  of 
habit  may  be  shaken  by  critical  experiences,  the  substan- 
tial progress  of  the  world  is  conserved  thereby,  even  though 
at  times  it  is  also  hindered  thereby. 

The  other  profound  characteristic  of  human  nature  ap- 
pears in  the  next  answer  that  was  made  to  the  Greek  ques- 
tion, and  to  that  we  must  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SECOND  ANSWER:      THE  PROPOSALS  OP  THE 
SOPHISTS 

WE  have  seen  that  in  a  time  of  crisis  society  cannot  go 
back  to  conditions  as  they  existed  before  the  crisis ;  broken 
worlds  of  habit  cannot  be  put  back  together  again  and 
treated  as  if  the  break  were  not  there.  The  broken  world 
must  be  accepted,  and  the  ultimate  outcome  must  develop 
out  of  facing  the  facts,  not  out  of  ignoring  them. 

Characteristics  of  the  Critical  Social  Situation. — The 
breakdown  of  custom  released  the  individual,  with  many 
undisciplined  impulses  and  energies,  with  an  inner  world 
of  feelings,  emotions,  and  opinions  which  had  escaped  the 
complete  control  of  old  habit  and  custom.  The  individual 
stands  out — not  the  striking  individual  merely,  but  the 
common  individual.  He  seems  so  full  of  energy,  of  inno- 
vations, of  new  and  untried  possibilities  that,  over  against 
the  drab  monotony  of  the  old  customary  life,  the  world 
takes  on  wonderful,  new,  strange,  beautiful  colorings  and 
contrasts.  These  new,  even  undreamed,  developments  are 
surely  worth  preserving;  they  are  worth  more  complete 
realization.  As  against  mere  conformity  they  are  infi- 
nitely worth  while.  Folkway  society  suppresses  all  these 
individual  contributions  and  possibilities.  Society  is  an 
ancient  evil  to  be  escaped;  the  individual  alone  has  lasting 
worth.  Thus  does  the  first  articulate  voice  of  the  new 
order  answer  the  wailing  of  the  old  order. 

The  Sophist  Analysis  of  the  Situation. — The  first  medi- 
ators of  a  world  of  broken  habits  and  customs  are  always 

64 


65 

' '  sophists. ' '  They  are  as  extreme  on  the  radical  side  as  are 
the  reactionaries  on  the  other  side.  But  they  perform 
certain  great  and  lasting  services  to  the  world.  They  take 
account  of  the  fact  that  old  habits  are  broken  down  and 
that  old  customs  do  not  any  longer  sway  the  consciences 
and  activities  of  men.  They  seize  upon  the  energies  and 
impulses  released  in  the  crisis  and  by  emphasis,  even  by 
exaggeration,  they  make  these  new  resources  of  the  human 
spirit  stand  out  until  intelligence  can  grasp  them  and 
bring  them  into  use.  Thus  they  commit  the  race  to  a  defi- 
nite movement  out  of  custom,  out  of  the  longing  for  cus- 
tom, into  the  acceptance  of  a  point  of  view  from  which 
there  is  absolutely  no  escape  save  through  the  development 
of  new  levels  of  intelligence. 

The  Sophists  said:  "Let  the  individual  have  free  play; 
that  is  his  right  and  his  proper  function.  The  old  customs 
are  gone,  and  well  may  they  be  forgotten.  Society  is  a 
crime  against  the  individual.  Each  man  should  be  the 
judge  of  his  own  good ;  each  individual  should  be  the  meas- 
ure of  his  own  world.  One  man's  opinion  is  just  as  good 
as  another 's,  if  he  can  sustain  that  opinion  in  an  argument. 
Society  is  a  fallacy;  the  world  is  made  up  of  individuals. 
We  do  not  want  systems;  we  want  to  get  as  far  from  old 
group-controls  as  possible.  Education  is  a  matter  of  in- 
dividual development.  Old  types  of  education  destroyed 
individuality.  The  new  education  will  ignore  customary 
aims.  It  will  make  each  individual  an  aim  in  himself,  and 
it  will  make  of  him  whatever  he  may  choose  to  become,  for 
education  can  do  anything  with  anyone."  This  is,  as  is 
easily  seen,  practically  the  complete  denial  of  everything 
held  valuable  in  the  old  folkway  education  and  the  accept- 
ance of  much  there  held  immoral. 

The  Sophists  had  no  system,  unless  it  was  the  systematic 
denial  of  systems.  Theirs  was  the  logic  of  individualism. 


66  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

They  represent  the  absolutely  necessary,  yet  socially  appal- 
ling, task  of  ploughing  up  old  social  soils  for  the  purpose 
of  laying  the  foundations  of  the  new  social  order.  That 
new  social  order  did  not  appear  in  their  own  considera- 
tion of  the  future,  save  perhaps  in  the  vision  of  a  few  of 
the  very  best,  like  Protagoras.  Their  task  was  the  tearing 
up  of  the  old  soils ;  it  was  left  to  other  forces  to  build  the 
new  order. 

The  Psychology  of  the  Sophist  Attitude. — But  though 
they  had  no  system,  a  rather  definite  tendency  runs  through 
all  their  proposals  and  activities,  and  we  must  see  what  this- 
tendency  is.  Customs  are  universal  social  bonds  holding 
together  in  one  social  unity  all  those  who  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  them;  habit  is  the  individual  expression  of  these 
social  customs.  This  is  the  psychology  of  the  folkways. 
Now  habit  and  custom  suppress  the  originality  of  the  in- 
dividual. That  originality  finds  chance  and  room  for  ex- 
pression when  the  folkways  break  down  for  a  time;  and 
that  originality  expresses  itself  in  individual  impulses, 
feelings,  emotions,  energies,  and  initiatives.  These  seem  to 
the  Sophists  the  valuable  elements  in  life,  and  these  are 
possible  only  when  the  folkways  have  been  broken  down. 

But  the  Greek  Sophists  were  still  too  close  to  their  folk- 
way  ancestry  to  realize  that  habits  and  customs  cannot  be 
thrown  off  so  easily  and  so  completely.  Habitual  attitudes 
and  feelings  still  persist  under  the  surface  of  assumed 
"originality."  Especially  opinion,  which  seems  individual 
and  which  the  Sophists  valued  so  highly,  is  really  only 
the  expression  of  old  habit-attitudes,  or  no  less  unintelli- 
gent contradictions  of  those  attitudes.  Hence  their  "opin- 
ions," instead  of  being  surely  original  contributions,  were 
frequently  nothing  but  the  reassertion  of  old  customary 
commonplaces.  They  were  all  the  more  valuable,  perhaps, 
for  that  fact,  but  still  that  fact  shows  us  how  much  the 


THE  PROPOSALS  OF  THE  SOPHISTS         67 

Sophists  were  deceived  in  their  belief  that  they  had 
reached  the  summation  of  wisdom.  Their  "opinions" 
were,  as  Socrates  later  pointed  out,  half-thoughts,  some- 
thing more  than  mere  vague  feelings  about  the  world,  some- 
thing less  than  clear  ideas  or  complete  understanding. 
These  "opinions"  intentionally  break  with  old  attitudea. 
In  that  way  they  make  for  the  progress  of  the  world,  but 
they  do  not  critically  arrive  at  reliable  and  substantial  new 
attitudes.  Hence  they  are  subject  to  the  biting  criticisms 
of  later  thinkers,  and  they  have  turned  the  term  "sophist" 
into  a  common  reproach. 

The  Social  Significance  of  the  Sophists. — The  Sophists 
professed  to  teach  in  all  the  social  fields :  morality,  religion, 
politics,  industry,  education,  etc.  In  each  of  these  fields 
they  declared  that  a  social  unity  of  opinion  was  of  no  value, 
but  only  individual  capacity;  that  since  society  did  not 
exist,  or  did  not  rightly  exist,  it  could  make  no  difference 
which  side  of  an  argument  the  student  chose.  Not  the 
outcome  but  the  method  of  argument  was  the  ideal,  and 
that  therefore  each  student  should  be  taught  only  those 
things  which  he  should  need  in  his  future  career.  This 
program  completely  ignores  the  demands  of  tradition  in 
education,  and  it  marks  the  beginning  of  the  world's  great- 
est movement  after  the  folkways  are  left,  the  movement 
in  the  direction  of  theory.  Life  thus  far,  as  we  have  seen, 
has  been  lived  without  critical  thinking,  simply  under  the 
control  of  habit  and  custom.  Habit  and  custom  break 
down;  a  new  order  must  arise.  Shall  it  be  another  "rule 
of  thumb"  sort  of  social  order?  Or  shall  it  find  place 
within  itself  for  the  organization  of  intelligent  living,  i.e., 
living  based  in  some  genuine  degree  upon  critical  investiga- 
tion of  conditions,  intelligent  organization  of  the  results  of 
those  critical  investigations,  and  actual  construction  of  a 
world  of  life  and  action  along  the  lines  laid  down  in  this 


€8  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

intelligence  ?  The  Sophists  did  not  go  far  in  working  out 
the  implications  of  their  movement;  but  by  raising  the 
question,  "What  does  this  individual  really  need?"  they 
opened  the  way  to  the  only  true  answer,  "That  depends 
upon  your  theory  of  the  universe,  the  world,  life,  educa- 
tion, social  order" — an  answer  that  must  eventually  be- 
come the  basis  of  a  complete  reconstruction  of  the  condi- 
tions of  existence.  However  partial  or  faulty  the  Sophist 
philosophy  may  seem  to  have  been,  it  was  an  actual  contri- 
bution to  the  progress  of  the  world,  the  working  out  of  a 
stage  in  the  development  of  intelligence  and  education  with- 
out which  modern  civilization  could  not  have  been  achieved. 
There  is  absolutely  no  way  out  of  the  folkways  save  through 
"sophism,"  though  the  Sophists  themselves  never  com- 
pletely escape.  He  who  comes  through  into  the  world  of 
complete  freedom  must  be  at  some  time  a  Sophist,  but  he 
must  become,  like  Socrates,  something  more  than  a  Sophist, 
or  at  least  the  "greatest  of  the  Sophists." 

The  Fallacies  of  the  Sophist  Position. — Psychology,  as 
such,  did  not  exist  in  the  Sophist  period ;  hence  they  failed 
to  appreciate  their  own  half -complete  attitudes.  Pioneers 
in  the  individual  advance,  they  became,  as  was  almost  in- 
evitable, individualists,  ignoring  or  denying  the  meaning 
and  the  existence  of  the  "social."  They  built  a  new  world, 
or  thought  they  did,  out  of  individual  impulse.  Thus  they 
thought  they  were  fostering  the  individual  and  denying  the 
social  control  which  had  hitherto  suppressed  the  individual. 

In  this  there  were  two  big  facts  they  did  not  and  could 
not  know.  First,  that  the  individual  does  not  exist  and 
cannot  come  into  being  apart  from  society.  Second,  that 
individual  impulse  may  be  itself  the  basis  of  lasting  and 
permanent  universal  social  bonds.  That  is  to  say,  society 
produces  the  real  individual,  and  society  is  itself  assured 
in  the  genuine  needs  of  the  individual.  But  it  must  re- 


69 

main  for  Socrates,  and  a  thousand  thinkers  after  him,  to 
struggle  through  the  long  thought-paths  that  lead  to  this 
result.  Meanwhile  we  must  turn  to  Socrates  and  ask  for 
the  third  answer  to  the  problem  of  the  Greeks. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  THIRD  ANSWER:    THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES 
(469-399  B.C.) 

"MANKIND  can  hardly  be  too  often  reminded,"  says 
John  Stuart  Mill,  "that  there  once  was  a  man  named 
Socrates."  But  few  people,  even  students  of  history,  phi- 
losophy, and  education,  know  why  Mill  said  that,  or  what 
Socrates  really  contributed  to  the  progress  of  humanity. 
Davidson  says : x  ' '  Socrates  discovered  free  personality 
and  moral  freedom,  and  made  the  greatest  of  all  epochs  in 
the  world's  history."  What  does  such  a  statement  really 
mean  ?  What  was  the  real  work  of  this  man  Socrates  ? 

The  Situation  Reviewed. — It  is  evident  that  Socrates 
contributed  something  that  was  of  the  nature  of  a  distinct 
advance,  a  break  with  the  answers  of  both  the  conservatives 
and  the  sophists,  the  introduction  of  something  new,  the 
setting  of  the  currents  of  history  into  new  channels.  If 
we  are  to  understand  his  work,  we  must  get  a  clear  grasp 
of  his  problem. 

We  have  already  seen  two  possible  ways  of  living:  life 
according  to  habit  and  custom,  as  in  the  folkways ;  and  life 
according  to  impulse,  feeling,  and  opinion,  as  advocated 
by  the  Sophists.  These  are  the  two  answers  already  pro- 
posed. Now  if  there  is  nothing  further,  what  must  the 
Greek  world  do?  Is  the  Sophist  program  possible? 
Where  does  it  lead  ?  To  complete  anarchy,  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  social  order,  to  a  world  peopled  by  individu- 
als who  have  no  sense  of  common  relationship?  If 

i  "History  of  Education,"  p.  101. 

70 


THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES          71 

so,  what  Is  the  end  of  the  story  to  be?  But  on  the  other 
hand,  is  it  possible  to  go  back  into  the  old  folkway  life,  to 
the  bondage  of  custom  and  tradition?  Where  would  such 
a  pathway  lead  eventually?  To  stagnation,  to  corruption, 
to  a  world  that  had  lost  the  little  gleam  of  light  and  had 
fallen  back  into  despair. 

But,  if  no  other  pathway  opens,  Athens  must  go  one  way 
or  the  other  of  these  two — to  a  life  of  slavish  habit  again, 
or  to  a  life  of  unlimited  confusion.  And  in  the  end  we 
can  readily  see  which  of  these  will  happen.  Athens  will 
fall  back  into  some  sort  of  unintelligent  folkway.  Custom 
and  habit  will  reassert  their  control  over  the  world,  be- 
cause man  must  have  a  social  world.  Men  cannot  live  the 
sort  of  life  the  Sophists  insisted  upon.  Men  cannot  exist 
like  grains  of  sand  in  a  heap,  mere  atoms  of  a  social  mass. 
Men  are  the  products  of  a  social  order,  and  they  cannot  live 
without  a  social  background,  a  "fatherland"  of  some  sort. 
This  is  something  the  folkways  had  provided;  but  the 
Sophists  derided  the  idea. 

On  the  other  hand,  have  the  Sophists  offered  nothing  of 
value  to  the  world?  Must  their  work  go  entirely  for  noth- 
ing? That  depends.  They  have  offered  something  of 
priceless  worth,  if  the  world  really  gets  it.  But  the  tragic 
fact  is  that  the  Sophists  were  incapable  of  finishing  what 
they  began,  and  their  work  would  be  worse  than  useless 
unless  it  were  really  carried  through.  They  were  on  a 
pathway  that  led  to  finer,  larger,  richer  fields  of  living  than 
anything  the  world  had  dreamed  of.  But  they  did  not  see, 
they  could  not  follow  to  the  end.  Socrates  did  see,  for 
he  was  on  the  same  road,  a  road  which  all  must  travel  who 
would  escape  from  the  folkways  into  a  life  of  intelligence. 
Socrates  followed  to  within  sight  of  the  end  at  least.  He 
was  the  "greatest  of  the  Sophists,"  the  first  real  thinker 
in  the  world 's  history.  "What  was  it  he  thought  ? 


72  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Two  Programs,  and  a  Third. — The  characteristic  of  the 
folkways  is  Habit.  Habit,  as  developed  in  the  customary 
life  of  the  folkways,  has  two  aspects.  It  is  first  a  universal 
social  bond,  holding  together  all  who  have  been  habituated ; 
second,  it  is  mechanical,  externally  imposed,  inculcated  by 
means  of  a  fixed  education,  suppressing  all  individual  im- 
pulse, originality,  and  personal  expression.  There  are 
here,  therefore,  a  good — the  bond  of  a  common  social  life — 
and  an  evil — a  mechanical  and  external  system  which  so- 
ciety imposes  upon  all  individuals  for  their  control. 

The  characteristic  of  the  Sophist  program  is  Individual 
Impulse.  Impulse  also  has  two  aspects.  It  is  first  per- 
sonal, the  expression  of  the  inner  life,  original,  fraught 
with  the  keenest  personal  interest,  but  it  is  also  particular, 
the  peculiar  possession  of  one  individual,  private,  unlike 
anything  else  in  the  world.  There  are  here,  therefore, 
again  a  good — personal  expression  of  the  inner  life — and 
an  evil — a  particular,  private  program  of  living  which 
holds  its  right  to  exist  against  all  protest. 

Now,  the  advocate  of  the  older  folkway  program  stood 
firmly  for  his  proposals,  and  the  Sophist  stood  firmly  for 
his.  It  is  the  glory  of  one  man,  Socrates,  that  he  dared  to 
tear  these  two  programs  to  pieces,  to  take  from  each  of  them 
the  good,  the  desirable  element,  to  attempt  to  combine  these 
desirable  elements  into  a  new  program  and  to  discard  the 
other  elements.  After  all,  the  significant  element  in  the 
folkways  was  the  universal  social  bond,  the  thing  that 
made  society.  If  some  other  way  of  assuring  this  social 
bond  can  be  found,  no  one  need  insist  upon  the  mechanics 
of  the  folkways.  Again,  the  significant  thing  in  the  Sophist 
program  is  personal  initiative,  the  reality  of  the  individu- 
al's inner  life.  If  this  can  be  assured  in  society,  the  doc- 
trine of  an  atomistic  world  of  individuals  can  be  readily 
discarded. 


THE  CONTKIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES          73 

And  so,  Socrates  assures  us,  out  of  these  two  diverse  and 
even  antagonistic  programs  a  third,  a  new  program,  can  be 
developed  which  will  combine  the  good  from  each  of  the 
old.  Let  us  combine  the  ideal  of  a  real  social  order,  con- 
tributed  by  the  folkways,  with  the  ideal  of  personal  initia- 
tive and  individual  expression  contributed  by  the  Sophists. 
So  far,  so  good ;  but  how  can  this  be  done  ?  Personal  initia- 
tive is  an  impulse ;  hence  it  is  a  particular  expression,  while 
social  order  is  a  universal  expression.  Can  a  particular 
impulse  become  a  universal  bond  ?  The  reactionaries  would 
have  said  "No,"  and  the  Sophists  did  say  "No."  But 
Socrates  said  "Yes,"  and  in  that  courageous  statement  he 
found  a  way  out  of  both  the  mechanics  of  the  folkways  and 
the  anarchy  of  impulse  into  the  world  of  ideas  and  moral 
freedom. 

Socrates'  Doctrine  of  Ideas. — We  have  seen  that  the 
Sophists  had  "opinions"  and  that  the  people  of  the  folk- 
ways had  "habits."  Socrates  partly  points  out,  partly 
implies,  that  implicit  in  every  habit  there  is  the  "idea" 
of  that  habit,  that  is  to  say,  an  intelligent  statement  of  the 
nature  and  significance  of  the  habit  by  means  of  which 
two  people  can  discuss  the  habit,  agree  upon  it,  under- 
stand it,  even  work  out  a  program  by  which  it  can  be  in- 
culcated. He  fully  points  out  that  implicit  in  every  im- 
pulse and  every  "opinion"  there  is  an  "idea."  He  calls 
these  "opinions"  of  the  Sophists  "  half -thoughts. "  He 
tells  them  that  their  salvation  lies  not  in  these  partial  prod- 
ucts of  personal  initiative,  but  in  carrying  their  impulses 
through  until  they  become  ' '  whole-thoughts, ' '  that  is,  fully 
developed  "ideas";  and  he  insists  that  when  an  impulse 
or  an  "opinion"  has  been  carried  through  to  complete  de- 
velopment, until  it  has  become  an  ' '  idea, ' '  it  ceases  to  be  a 
"particular"  and  becomes  a  "universal."  That  is  to  say, 
every  impulse,  though  it  may  seem  to  be  the  most  particular 


74  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

thing  in  the  world,  is  really  an  incipient  universal.  It  has 
its  universal  significance,  and  every  universal  proposition 
has  grown  out  of  some  particular  impulse  or  half-mature 
"opinion." 

Impulses  and  "opinions"  then,  when  they  are  fully 
developed,  become  universals,  and  instead  of  destroying  the 
social  order  as  the  reactionaries  feared  and  the  Sophists 
hoped,  they  affirm  and  assure  the  social  order,  or  some  so- 
cial order.  What  the  Sophists  most  emphasized,  individual 
impulse  and  "opinion,"  is  thus  shown  by  Socrates  to  be 
the  very  foundation  of  some  larger  social  order,  with  this 
advantage  over  the  old  social  order :  the  new,  developed  out 
of  impulses  and  "opinions,"  can  be  both  personally  pos- 
sessed by  its  members  and  intelligently  understood,  organ- 
ized, criticised,  and  controlled  by  them.  Ideas  release  us 
from  the  machine-made  order  of  the  folkways  and  from  the 
anarchy  of  the  Sophist  program  into  the  world  of  intelli- 
gent understanding  and  control,  "the  world  of  free  per- 
sonality and  moral  freedom,"  and  this  "discovery  of  ideas" 
marks  the  beginning  of  the  "greatest  epoch  in  the  world 
history."  Socrates  occupies  the  place  in  history  that  he 
holds  because  he  found  the  way  out  of  both  the  stagnation 
of  habit  and  the  anarchy  of  impulse.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  "mankind  cannot  be  too  often  reminded"  that  he 
lived.  Ideas  can  take  the  place  of  the  unconscious  mech- 
anism of  the  folkways  on  the  one  hand  and  the  conscious 
"half  thoughts"  or  opinions  of  the  Sophists  on  the  other. 
They  give  man  control  over  his  own  destiny;  they  make 
him  free. 

The  Significance  of  All  This  for  Education.— Through 
the  work  of  Socrates  the  world  for  the  first  time  reached  the 
conception  of  a  life  of  freedom  that  should  still  be  subject 
to  some  sort  of  general  rule  or  intelligence  or  ' '  law. ' '  Here 
is  a  freedom  not  of  the  "outlaw,"  but  of  an  encompassing 


THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES          75 

social  order,  a  social  order  that  has  been  developed  by 
human  nature,  by  individual  growth  and  thought,  a  social 
order  that  gives  both  freedom  and  the  sense  of  "father- 
land." 

But  the  doubt  arises,  can  ideas  really  be  social  bonds? 
Does  knowledge  unite  people  ?  Socrates  insists  that  it  does. 
Opinions  divide  people,  because  they  are  accidental,  uncriti- 
cised,  based  on  old  prejudices  or  other  folkway  attributes; 
but  ideas  unite  people,  because  they  have  been  criticised, 
shorn  of  their  particular  elements,  and  carried  through 
until  only  their  universal  and  common  elements  and  mean- 
ings remain.  They  represent  really  human  attitudes,  atti- 
tudes that  all  humans  can  share. 

But  where  do  ideas  come  from?  They  seem  rather  won- 
derful things.  What  is  their  origin?  Socrates  taught  in 
the  midst  of  the  busy  life  of  the  city.  He  had  no  school. 
He  called  men  aside  as  they  passed  along  the  street  and  he 
said  to  them:  "Do  you  know  what  you  are  doing?" 
Here  was  his  school,  himself  as  teacher,  his  pupil  a  man 
picked  up  at  random  or  some  one  who  sought  him  out. 
He  saw  that  men  were  going  about  their  living  and  their 
work  either  under  the  control  of  mechanical  habit  or  under 
the  urge  of  some  half-developed  "opinion."  In  either  case 
they  were  victims  of  external  and  impersonal  controls. 
Socrates  insisted  that  man's  first  duty  was  to  "know  him- 
self,"— to  think  through  from  both  habit  and  opinion  to 
real  ideas  that  he  can  call  his  own.  Ideas,  we  thus  see, 
grow  out  of  the  very  soil  of  common  experience,  out  of  the 
heart  of  life,  out  of  the  world  of  work,  out  of  the  civic 
situation.  Ideas  are  social  products.  In  the  growth  of 
experience,  in  the  midst  of  habits,  opinions,  and  impulses, 
ideas  are  needed,  are  called  for,  are  slowly  developed  and 
hammered  into  shape  for  use,  for  the  control  of  impulses, 
for  the  explanation  and  criticism  of  habits,  for  the  fore- 


76 

casting  of  the  future.  Social  experience  finds  its  finest 
fruit  in  the  production  of  illuminating  and  organizing 
ideas. 

Such  a  discussion  probably  exaggerates  the  Socratic  posi- 
tion a  little,  for  he  did  not  see  all  that  is  implied  in  ideas. 
But  such  an  explanation  of  his  position  seems  necessary  if 
we  are  to  see  clearly  what  Mill  and  Davidson  and  hundreds 
of  others  mean  when  they  speak  in  such  eulogistic  terms  of 
this  man.  It  helps  us  to  see,  also,  what  is  meant  by  the 
saying,  "Socrates  brought  down  philosophy  from  heaven 
to  dwell  among  men." 

The  "Socratic  Method." — Socrates  taught  by  asking 
questions.  His  questions  were  directed  to  the  habit  he 
wanted  to  uncover,  to  the  impulse  he  wanted  to  explore,  in 
the  hope  that  he  might  be  able  to  help  "bring  to  birth," 
as  he  called  it,  the  idea  that  should  explain  either  the 
habit  or  the  impulse  in  question.  "Asking  questions"  is 
not  necessarily  Socratic.  The  Socratic  method  works  for 
the  production  of  ideas  in  the  soil  of  the  pupil 's  experience. 
It  is  like  the  farmer's  use  of  the  hoe.  The  farmer  does  not 
expect  to  uncover  corn  when  he  hoes  up  the  ground.  He 
does  expect  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  the  corn  in  and 
on  the  stalk,  where  it  should  grow.  So  Socrates  asked 
questions  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating  the  growth  of 
ideas  within  the  experience  of  the  student.  Such  ideas  be- 
long to  the  one  who  grows  them.  Such  ideas  need  no  fur- 
ther emotional  stimulant  in  order  to  get  them  into  action. 
They  act  because  they  are  outlets  which  experience  has  been 
blindly  seeking.  Hence  the  good  can  be  taught,  if  it  is 
taught  so  that  it  rises  up  within  the  actual  experience  of  the 
individual  himself;  but  it  cannot  be  taught  by  forcing  it 
upon  the  individual  from  without.  The  teacher  brings 
forth ;  he  does  not  put  in  information. 

The  Failure  of  the  Socratic  Program. — The  great  con- 


THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES          77 

tributions  of  Socrates  are  these:  he  shows  the  significance, 
nature,  and  origin  of  ideas,  and  the  method  of  develop- 
ing ideas  as  social  products.  He  opened  up  to  the  world 
the  unsuspected  inner  realm  of  ideal  intelligence,  the  realm 
of  freedom,  the  realm  of  civilization  and  science.  He 
pointed  to  a  gradually  growing  civilization  that  should, 
little  by  little,  realize  the  meanings  implicit  in  its  own  hab- 
its and  impulses,  until  it  should  come  to  know  itself  and 
thus  reach  freedom.  He  found  the  way  out  of  the  folk- 
ways without  destroying  what  the  folkways  had  accom- 
plished. He  escaped  from  sophistry  by  being  the  greatest 
of  the  Sophists. 

But  his  promises  and  his  methods  failed  in  very  complete 
degree  in  the  Greek  world,  and  for  obvious  reasons.  Soc- 
rates stands  at  the  apex  of  Greek  intelligence;  decline  be- 
gins with  his  death.  He  failed  for  two  main  reasons.  The 
first  of  these  was  that  the  Greek  political  and  social  order 
was  rapidly  disintegrating,  and  in  such  a  time  men  want 
some  immediate  solution  for  their  difficulties.  Something 
much  more  adaptable  to  the  conditions  of  the  times  was 
found  in  a  later  answer  to  this  same  old  Greek  question. 
The  Socratic  program  of  building  up  an  intelligent  social 
order  from  within  involved  too  much  time,  too  much  faith 
in  a  stable  future,  too  much  intelligence,  too  much  knowl- 
edge for  such  an  early  period  in  the  development  of  intel- 
ligence. 

The  second  reason  why  it  failed  was  that  men  are  not 
quite  brave  enough  to  face  the  uncharted  future.  Human- 
ity is  rather  timid.  Men  want  certainty,  or  at  least  a  high 
degree  of  assurance.  The  sophist  is  the  unusual  man  who 
breaks  with  the  past  rather  heedlessly  and  boasts  of  his 
ability  to  live  without  social  order  or  community  tradition. 
But  most  men  are  lost  when  out  of  sight  of  familiar  ob- 
jects. Socrates  opened  up  the  great  world  of  intelligence, 


78  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  land  of  moral  and  intellectual  pioneering.  That  land  is 
still,  after  more  than  two  thousand  years,  not  crowded.  It 
is  highly  praised— from  afar.  It  is  the  rather  rare  indi- 
vidual who  freely  chooses  to  enter  and  explore.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  in  those  earlier  days  the  proposal  to  solve  the 
world's  problems  by  social  intelligence  failed  to  meet  a 
unanimous  response?  And  in  the  light  of  the  old  securi- 
ties of  life,  property,  tradition,  custom,  and  privilege  un- 
der the  folkways  and  the  daring  uncertainties  of  life  in  a 
Socratic  social  order,  is  there  any  real  basis  for  wonder 
that  the  good  men  and  true  in  Athens  decided  that  it  was 
necessary  for  the  peace  and  security  of  the  city  of  Athens 
that  Socrates  must  die? 

But  we  thus  find  ourselves,  through  his  work,  freed  from 
the  folkways  and  standing  on  the  borders  of  the  land  of 
"free  personality  and  moral  and  intellectual  freedom." 
But  dare  we  go  in?  Is  it  not  an  illusion  set  for  our  de- 
struction, and  are  we  brave  enough  ?  Is  it  not  too  wonder- 
ful? Can  we  attain  unto  it?  Another  land,  less  arduous 
of  prospect  and  more  beautiful,  lies  at  the  end  of  another 
road.  With  the  death  of  Socrates,  and  his  consequent  dis- 
crediting, another  leader  of  the  life  of  inquiry  appears. 
Plato  offers  another  solution  to  those  who  want  intelligent 
answer  to  their  question.  Socrates  is  gone ;  Plato  shall  be 
our  leader.  He  is  wiser  than  Socrates,  as  we  shall  see,  for 
he  does  not  expect  too  much  of  men.  Philosophy,  educa- 
tion, ethics,  religion,  social  organization — all  are  turning 
from  the  impracticable  program  of  Socrates  to  the  less 
arduous  aims  of  Plato.  We,  too,  shall  turn  and  follow  him 
into  the  land  of  the  ultimate  good.  If,  perchance,  the  path 
we  follow  shall  lead  us  into  another  folkway  world,  it  will 
at  least  be  a  larger  and  a  nobler  world  than  that  of  the 
primitive  age,  and  it  will  certainly  be  more  secure  by  far 
than  this  wild  dream  of  Socrates ! 


THE  CONTRIBUTION  OF  SOCRATES          79 

We  thus  see  how  the  race  escapes  from  the  folkways  for 
a  moment,  only  to  be  frightened  at  its  freedom.  "We  turn 
now  to  Plato  and  the  beginnings  of  the  building  of  a  new 
and  larger  type  of  world-folkway.  We  shall  follow  Plato 
and  Platonism  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  until  once 
more  the  spirit  of  inquiry  breaks  through  the  certainties  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  gives  us  the  dawn  of  the  Modern  Age, 
of  science,  i.e.,  of  intelligence  that  is  sure  of  itself  and  that 
can  stand  the  test  of  the  years. 


PAET  III 
BUILDING  THE  LARGER  FOLKWAYS 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  FOURTH  ANSWER:    THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO 
(427-347  B.C.) 

THE  answer  which  Socrates  gave  to  the  old  Greek  ques- 
tion ' '  What  shall  be  done  when  the  folkways  break  down  ? ' ' 
is  the  one  way  out  of  the  folkway  situation.  But  it  was 
not  a  way  that  the  world  could  take  at  the  time  it  was  given. 
The  world  was  still  too  unpracticed  in  the  ways  of  this 
freedom,  when  the  whole  Greek  social  structure  began  to 
disappear.  The  people  were  still  too  close  to  the  morbid 
terrors  of  the  old  primitive  conceptions  of  life,  too  close  to 
the  anarchies  of  the  days  of  Alcibiades,  too  lacking  in  any 
clear  understanding  of  the  way  in  which  social  order  grows 
out  of  individual  necessity,  too  distrustful  of  an  educational 
doctrine  that  asserted  that  organizing  ideas  can  grow  up 
out  of  the  soil  of  unorganized,  even  anarchical,  impulses 
and  individual  feelings. 

From  another  point  of  view  this  program  of  Socrates 
was  impossible.  "We  now  know  that  the  world  of  knowl- 
edge and  ideas  does  not  grow  by  mere  addition,  by  accumu- 
lation of  fact  by  fact.  It  grows  by  hypotheses.  Intelli- 
gence builds  hypothetical  structures  and  puts  them  to  the 
test.  If  they  stand  the  test,  the  world  of  knowledge  has 
been  greatly  enlarged;  if  they  fail,  the  world  still  moves 
on,  because  not  all  of  life  is  involved  in  any  one  hypothesis. 
Socrates  had  no  great  social  hypothesis,  capable  of  stir- 
ring the  imagination  of  the  age,  to  offer.  He  had  a  method 
of  developing  knowledge  or  ideas.  He  seems  to  have 
thought  that  men  could  go  on  endlessly  accumulating 

83 


84  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

knowledge  and  ideas,  turning  customs  wrong  side  out  and 
making  opinions  submit  to  analysis.  Doubtless  this  pro- 
gram could  have  succeeded  in  a  complete  little  world  like 
Athens  was  in  her  days  of  isolation,  but  it  could  not  be 
done  in  the  cosmopolitan  days  that  followed  the  war  with 
Sparta.  Greek  life  was  soon  to  become  chaos;  the  Greek 
world  was  soon  to  pass  out  of  corporate  existence;  the 
"fatherland"  was  to  dissolve  into  the  mists  of  history. 
The  Greek  needed  a  real  hypothesis  of  a  permanent  world 
to  help  him  through  this  juncture.  He  needed  assurance 
of  the  reality  of  his  ideals,  of  the  permanence  of  his  con- 
ceptions of  the  Good  and  the  True.  He  needed  to  become 
possessed  of  a  new  "fatherland."  Plato  supplied  this  in 
his  wonderful  hypothesis  of  a  great  spiritual  world-order, 
existent  before  all  earthly  things,  of  which,  indeed,  the 
world  and  all  created  things  are  but  shadowy  copies.  Soc- 
rates' doctrine  of  ideas  also  plays  up  into  Plato's  concep- 
tion in  an  admirable  way.  If,  as  the  most  complete  result 
of  this  teaching  of  Plato's,  the  world  is  plunged  back  into 
a  new  folkway  organization,  we  need  not  wonder  too  much. 
History  shows  one  fact  beyond  dispute:  freedom  of  the 
moral  and  intellectual  sort  is  not  easily  attained,  and  is 
kept  only  by  being  endlessly  rewon. 

He  only  wins  his  freedom  and  existence 
Who  daily  conquers  it  anew. 

Plato's  Problems. — Plato  faced  two  great  problems.  The 
first  was  still  that  of  Socrates:  the  internal  decadence  of 
the  Greek  life.  The  solution  of  this  problem  would  doubt- 
less follow  for  him  the  lines  laid  down  by  his  teacher, 
Socrates.  But  the  second  was  a  problem  that  was  just  be- 
coming evident  in  Socrates'  time,  but  which  became  the 
most  obvious  characteristic  of  Plato's  period:  the  political 
disintegration  of  the  Greek  world.  Plato  was  about  twen- 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO  85 

ty-three  when  Sparta  conquered  Athens.  In  his  lifetime 
Sparta  fell  before  Thebes.  Thebes  was  conquered  by  her 
own  sloth  and  indolence  after  the  death  of  her  great  leader, 
Epaminondas.  This  meant  the  end  of  Greek  political  life 
in  independent  states.  Sparta  and  Thebes  had  exhausted 
Athens;  Athens  and  Thebes  had  crippled  Sparta;  Sparta 
and  Athens  had  checked  Thebes.  All  these  once  promising 
states  had  been  destroyed  in  turn.  Nothing  but  anarchy 
and  confusion  remained,  and  the  prospect  of  conquest  by 
some  outside  power.  This  was  the  background  of  Plato's 
life. 

Now  an  age  like  this  needs  something  to  help  carry  social 
and  personal  ideals  safely  through.  The  familiar  ' 'father- 
land" has  failed.  Where  shall  a  new  "fatherland"  be 
found?  Why  do  not  the  "ideas"  of  Socrates  hold  this  dis- 
integrating world  together?  Why  do  not  all  individuals 
feel  the  cementing  character  of  common  knowledge  and  re- 
main true  to  the  social  ideal?  These  are  questions  that 
Socrates  could  not  have  answered.  Plato  must  go  more 
deeply  into  the  problem.  Plato  believes  in  knowledge  and 
ideas  more  fully,  if  possible,  than  did  Socrates.  But  his 
knowledge  and  ideas  are  of  a  different  sort.  They  have  a 
different  origin,  a  different  nature,  a  different  value,  and 
a  different  function  to  perform.  Let  us  examine  these 
facts  more  fully. 

Plato's  Doctrine  of  Ideas. — According  to  Socrates,  the 
new  social  order  will  find  its  controls  in  ideas.  But  for  him 
ideas  have  essentially  a  democratic  origin;  they  grow  up 
out  of  the  confusions  of  the  common  life,  in  the  midst  of  the 
world's  work,  under  the  pressure  of  events,  and  in  the 
process  of  development  of  individuals  who  feel  the  con- 
flicts of  the  social  world  about  them  and  who  respond  to  the 
stimulations  of  the  social  world  in  this  new  way.  Thus 
we  may  see  that,  for  Socrates,  any  one  may  produce  ideas, 


86  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

any  one  may  possess  them ;  no  one  in  particular  is  responsi- 
ble for  them,  and  no  one  in  particular  is  authorized  to  pro- 
tect them  or  preserve  them.  Ideas  are  social  products,  and 
every  member  of  the  race  must  have  his  share  in  produc- 
ing and  possessing  and  preserving  them.  Now  this  pro- 
gram will  perhaps  work  out  successfully  in  the  midst  of  a 
fairly  stable  world,  such  as  Socrates  knew  in  his  young  man- 
hood, but  in  Plato's  day  the  Athenian  world  goes  com- 
pletely to  ruin,  and  for  such  a  time  Plato  offers  a  much 
more  permanent,  and  therefore  acceptable  solution. 

For  Plato  ideas  are  quite  as  wonderful  instruments  of 
social  organization  and  control  as  they  are  for  Socrates. 
They  are  even  more  wonderful ;  in  fact,  they  are  quite  too 
wonderful  to  have  had  any  such  lowly  origin  as  Socrates 
supposes.  Ideas  cannot  owe  their  origin  to  the  shifting, 
precarious  conditions  of  social  life.  Moreover,  ideas  al- 
ways precede  experiences.  We  have  the  idea  of  the  thing 
before  we  have  the  thing;  at  least,  the  clear  idea  is  neces- 
sary to  a  clear  experience.  Certainly  ideas  exist  as  pat- 
terns before  anything  worth  making  can  be  made.  This 
proves  that  ideas  exist  before  things.  Things  are  but  im- 
perfect copies  of  ideas ;  ideas  are  the  original  reality  of  the 
world.  The  universe  is  first,  a  great  system  of  ideas,  ex- 
istent before  all  things;  and  the  world  is  but  "a  shadow" 
or  copy  of  some  perfect,  preexistent  idea.  Ideas  are  older 
than  all  things  else,  the  eternal  realities  of  which  all  earthly 
things  are  but  shadowy  copies.  Ideas  are  the  eternal  forms 
or  patterns,  according  to  which  all  things  were  made  or  pat- 
terned. 

According  to  Plato,  Socrates  seems  also  to  have  been  mis- 
taken in  his  conception  of  the  nature  of  ideas.  Socrates 
seems  to  have  thought  of  ideas  as  "social  bonds"  growing 
up  in  the  midst  of,  and  out  of,  the  very  conditions  of  social 
life.  Plato  thinks  of  ideas  as  "social  forms"  coming  down 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO  87 

upon  the  social  world  from  the  heaven  of  preexistent  forms. 
Socrates  seems  to  have  thought  that  ideas  are  flexible,  plas- 
tic, growing  bonds;  for  Plato  ideas  seem  to  have  a  fixed 
character.  They  are  finished,  permanent  forms;  they  are 
like  final  systems;  they  control  life  not  by  growing  up 
within  it,  but  by  coming  down  upon  it,  surrounding  it  much 
as  a  hoop  surrounds  a  barrel  and  holds  the  staves  together. 

Socrates  was  therefore  mistaken  in  his  supposition  that 
ideas  could  be  the  possession  of  all  people.  Since  ideas  are 
already  in  existence,  they  cannot  be  "developed";  they  are 
already  complete;  they  exist  in  perfection  in  the  "Heaven 
of  Ideas, ' '  a  sort  of  eternal  treasure-house  of  ideas.  Hence 
they  cannot  become  the  possession  of  every  one.  Men  can 
get  them  by  becoming  able  to  see  behind  the  appearance  of 
things  into  the  eternal  realities  of  things.  This  requires 
long  discipline,  not  less  than  thirty-five  years  of  severest 
training.  Hence  these  ideas  cannot  be  secured  by  every 
one;  they  are  secured  only  by  a  very  special  class  of  the 
community,  the  philosophers.  These  are  men  who  have  a 
special  "golden"  nature,  capable  of  long  discipline  and 
willing  to  undergo  the  training  necessary  to  the  perception 
of  eternal  truth.  Ideas  attained  by  such  long  processes 
are  far  too  precious  to  be  lightly  made  the  possession  of 
every  one.  Just  as  all  are  not  capable  of  becoming  "phi- 
losophers," so  not  all  are  to  be  trusted  with  ideas  after  they 
are  secured.  The  education  of  the  world  by  means  of  these 
ideas  is  also  pretedermined,  and  is  conditioned  upon  the 
natures  of  the  people  who  make  up  society.  "We  must  now 
see  what  that  education  becomes  under  Plato's  system  of 
ideas. 

Plato's  Hypothesis. — Unlike  Socrates,  Plato  set  up  a 
rather  complete  and  definite  social  hypothesis  to  bridge  the 
civic  crisis  of  his  time.  That  hypothesis  is  too  compre- 
hensive to  be  entered  into  here.  It  is  the  substance  of 


88  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

his  Republic.  Only  certain  important  phases  of  it  can  be 
considered  here. 

According  to  this  hypothesis,  the  world  is,  first,  ideas, 
and  afterward,  things.  Good  conduct,  good  social  rela- 
tionships, good  government,  therefore,  must  all  be  based 
upon  clear  grasp  of  ideas.  This  makes  the  acquisition  of 
ideas  the  most  important  aspect  of  individual  and  social 
conduct.  But  all  sorts  of  false  representations  and  per- 
versions of  ideas  are  floating  around.  This  makes  neces- 
sary the  development  of  a  particularly  selected'  and  quali- 
fied type  of  individual,  the  thinker  or  philosopher,  whose 
business  it  shall  be  to  discern  ideas  and  deliver  them  au- 
thoritatively to  the  world.  The  state  will  be  perfect  only 
when  it  is  governed  by  the  philosopher.  ' '  Until  then,  phi- 
losophers are  kings,  or  the  kings  and  princes  of  this  world 
have  the  spirit  and  power  of  philosophy,  and  political  great- 
ness and  wisdom  meet  in  one,  and  those  commoner  natures 
who  propose  either  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  are  com- 
pelled to  stand  aside,  cities  will  never  cease  from  ill, — no, 
nor  the  human  race,  as  I  believe, — and  then  only  will  our 
State  have  a  possibility  of  life  and  behold  the  light  of 
day."1  That  is  to  say,  the  only  realities,  the  only  things 
that  will  surely  live  through  the  ages  of  social  confusion, 
are  ideas.  The  state  finds  its  lasting  reality,  its  real  exist- 
ence, in  its  ideas  or  ideals;  the  individual,  also,  can  find 
his  necessary  "fatherland"  only  in  some  realm  of  ideas. 
The  fixed  and  ideal  order  of  the  universe,  slowly  becoming 
known  to  the  philosopher,  gives  absolute  assurance  of  the 
permanence  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  hopes.  And 
education  must  bend  its  every  effort  to  find  and  develop 
those  men  who  are  capable  of  becoming  philosophers,  for 
the  salvation  of  the  world  depends  upon  them. 

But  this  practically  makes  of  education  a  purely  intel- 

i  "Republic,"  V,  473. 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO  89 

lectualistic  matter.  Man  has  no  share,  as  Socrates  sup- 
posed, in  the  development  of  ideas.  A  few  men,  the  phi- 
losophers, are  to  discern  them ;  all  the  rest  of  the  race  are 
to  learn  them  and  be  bound  by  them.  Impulses,  feelings, 
emotions,  novelties  in  social  stimulations  and  the  like,  all  of 
which  were  so  important  to  the  Sophists  and  Socrates  and 
out  of  which  Socrates  seems  to  have  dimly  felt  all  the  new 
and  larger  social  order  was  to  come — these  aspects  of  life 
are,  for  Plato,  evils  to  be  controlled  by  ideas.  Knowledge 
comes  down  upon  life  from  above,  and  it  can  be  "  taken 
on"  by  nothing  but  the  disciplined  intellect.  All  that  is 
good  or  true  or  beautiful,  and  therefore  worthy  of  human 
endeavor,  exists  beforehand  in  the  "Heaven  of  Ideas";  at 
the  most,  men  can  discover  these  preexistent  treasures. 
Hence  education  for  the  philosopher  consists  of  such  disci- 
pline as  will  make  him  fit  for  this  high  task  of  discovering 
ideas;  while  education  of  all  the  other  members  of  society 
consists  of  discipline  in  habits  of  subordination  to  the 
fixed  aspects  of  the  social  system. 

Plato's  Social  System. — Plato  interprets  the  movements 
of  his  times  in  such  a  way  as  to  establish  what  may  be 
called  an  intellectual  aristocracy.  He  conceives  of  the  so- 
cial world  as  being  analogous  to  the  nature  of  the  individ- 
ual; and  he  finds  in  the  individual  three  aspects:  intellect, 
the  passions,  and  the  desires  or  appetites.  The  virtue  of 
intellect  is  prudence,  or  foresight;  the  virtue  of  the  pas- 
sions is  fortitude,  or  fearlessness;  the  virtue  of  the  appe- 
tites is  temperance,  or  moderation.  The  hope  of  society 
lies,  of  course,  in  the  intellect;  and  when  the  passions  and 
the  appetites  lend  their  energies  and  fires  in  proper  meas- 
ure to  the  support  of  the  intellect,  the  life  of  the  individual 
becomes  rightly  balanced  and  justice,  as  an  individual  af- 
fair, is  established.  Corresponding  to  this  individual  na- 
ture, with  its  threefold  character,  we  find  the  social  world 


90  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

manifests  three  aspects,  or  classes.  First,  there  is  the 
class  of  philosophers,  whose  business  is  the  discernment  of 
ideas,  whose  virtue  is  wisdom,  and  whose  duty  is  leader- 
ship of  the  state.  Second,  there  is  the  military  class,  whose 
business  is  the  protection  of  the  state,  whose  virtue  is  honor 
(in  the  military  sense)  and  who  owe  obedience  to  the  ruling 
class.  And  third,  there  is  the  "working  class,"  whose 
business  is  producing  the  physical  goods  of  the  state,  whose 
virtue  is  the  creation  of  wealth,  and  whose  lives  are  to  be 
completely  dictated  by  the  military  powers  under  the  com- 
mands of  the  philosophers.  Membership  in  these  classes 
is  not  determined  by  birth.  That  one  fact  alone  redeems 
Plato's  conception  from  absolute  Orientalism.  Member- 
ship in  these  classes  is  determined  by  a  sort  of  abstract 
"native  fitness"  as  this  comes  out  in  the  processes  of  edu- 
cation and  training.  Education  thus  becomes  a  process  of 
sifting  the  whole  rising  generation  with  a  view  to  deter- 
mining the  respective  class  to  which  each  shall  belong ;  and 
after  this  determination  education  becomes  specialized  to 
fit  the  members  of  each  class  for  that  life  each  will  nor- 
mally live. 

All  this  seems  to  offer  something  like  essential  freedom, 
or  rather  like  the  pathway  to  freedom,  for  Plato  bases  the 
whole  structure  of  civilization  and  the  whole  hope  of  hu- 
manity upon  knowledge,  ideas.  Thus  social  progress,  edu- 
cation, the  development  of  the  life  of  man  religiously,  po- 
litically, and  esthetically — these  are  all  to  be  controlled  by 
the  true  insight  of  the  philosopher.  In  this  way  all  prog- 
ress, all  education,  all  development,  becomes  subject  to  in- 
tellect and  is  dominated  by  intellectual  consideration.  Yet 
for  just  these  reasons  all  is  finally  lost  in  the  mazes  of  in- 
tellectualism.  For  Plato  there  is  no  real  progress,  as  prog- 
ress is  conceived  in  evolutionary  terms.  Whatever  is  to  be 
exists  already;  only  the  intellect  has  not  yet  discerned  its 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO  91 

existence.  Progress  is  therefore  not  a  realization  of  new 
existence;  it  is  merely  the  uncovering  of  the  already  ex- 
istent. That  makes  it  wholly  a  matter  of  the  intellect ;  and 
intellectual  progress  seems  to  imply  the  eventual  rooting 
out  of  all  the  evils  of  anarchic  impulse,  feeling,  and  emo- 
tion, a  culmination  that  seems  to  be  reached  socially  in  the 
stern  rigors  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Plato's  Influence. — This  great  social  and  educational 
program  of  Plato's  states  the  hypothesis  of  an  educational 
and  social  experiment  at  which  the  world  worked  rather 
strenuously  for  two  thousand  years.  It  may  be  called  the 
most  extensive  scientific  experiment  the  world  has  ever 
hitherto  known.  For  if  a  scientific  experiment  essentially 
consists  in  putting  an  hypothesis  to  the  test  of  actual  con- 
ditions, then  in  this  after-history  of  Platonism  we  have  a 
scientific  experiment.  Plato's  hypothesis  that  reality  is 
idea  and  that  therefore  the  whole  world  can  be  finally 
stated  in  and  controlled  by  intellectual  terms  became  the 
dominant  social  influence  for  nearly  two  thousand  years. 
It  was  tested  under  a  wonderful  variety  of  social  condi- 
tions, as  we  shall  see,  and  though  it  failed,  its  failure  is  still 
a  brilliant  memory.  Because  the  statement  was  not  suf- 
ficiently exacting,  its  upholders  called  to  their  aid  the 
more  extreme  hypothesis  of  Aristotle  (to  be  noted  shortly) 
and  all  but  succeeded  in  proving  the  final  truth  of  their 
great  proposal.  We  shall  come  upon  that  full  story  little 
by  little  as  we  proceed.  Here  we  need  mention  only  that 
Plato  really  draws  his  scheme  of  social  reorganization  from 
the  old  folkway  world,  especially  from  the  folkways  of 
Sparta,  which  he  idealizes  and  criticises  and  fits  to  his  so- 
cial needs.  Platonism  is  really  a  mighty  attempt  to  jus- 
tify the  folkway  type  of  social  organization,  for  Plato's 
ideas  are  but  the  explicit  expression  of  the  implicit  cus- 
toms and  habits  of  the  old  folkway  worlds.  To  the  mem- 


92  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

her  of  the  old  primitive  group,  life  found  its  security  and 
its  finality  in  conformity  to  the  controls  of  custom  and 
habit.  All  individual  caprice  or  impulse  or  initiative  in 
the  folkway  world  was  of  the  nature  of  evil;  it  might 
bring  about  the  final  destruction  of  the  group.  This  was 
so  in  Plato's  universe.  Plato's  thesis  might  be  stated  in 
this  wise:  Life,  i.e.,  the  permanent  form  of  life,  is  that 
fixed,  criticised,  and  final  system  which  is  found  only  in 
the  product  of  the  disciplined  intellect,  corresponding  to  the 
fixed  system  of  customs  and  habits  of  the  folkways.  In  or- 
der to  live  fully,  one  must  know,  just  as  in  the  old  folkway 
world  the  individual  must  be  fully  habituated.  Salvation 
from  the  evils  of  the  world  comes  through  clear  conceptions 
and  conformity  to  the  system  which  these  clear  concep- 
tions establish,  just  as  salvation  from  the  evils  of  the  prim- 
itive world  came  from  membership  in  and  conformity  to  the 
system  of  the  group.  Impulses,  originalities,  initiatives, 
and  the  like  are  all  evils  to  be  controlled  by  ideas,  just  as 
in  the  folkway  world  all  impulses  were  evils  to  be  con- 
trolled by  the  customs  of  the  group.  The  perfect  life  is  a 
life  of  completely  organized,  adjusted,  and  balanced  ideas, 
which  includes  the  whole  range  of  personal  and  social  living 
and  which  has  secured  absolute  control  of  all  lesser  details 
of  existence,  just  as  the  perfect  life  in  the  folkway  group 
was  the  life  which  had  become  completely  habituated,  with- 
out dangers  or  fears  or  signs  of  impending  change  either 
within  or  without,  a  sort  of  life  which  fulfills  the  old  state- 
ment, ' '  a  people  without  a  history. ' ' 

This  large  hypothesis  was,  as  we  have  said,  eagerly  ac- 
cepted by  the  ages  that  followed  Plato.  The  conditions  of 
civilization  for  two  thousand  years  helped  to  emphasize  the 
importance  and  significance  of  this  great  interpretation  of 
the  world.  The  Roman  Empire  embodied  it  in  political 
forms;  the  Middle  Ages  organized  it  into  their  religious 


THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  PLATO  93 

system,  including  in  it,  in  one  timeless  whole,  past,  present, 
and  future.  It  came  to  its  full  test  at  the  climax  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Education  was  controlled  by  this  concep- 
tion through  practically  all  these  centuries.  Almost  all 
the  efforts  of  all  the  powers  of  authority  in  state  and  church 
and  school  and  social  order  were  engaged  for  the  great  task 
of  proving  it  true.  But  it  failed!  It  failed  to  meet  the 
larger  tests  which  non-intellectual  processes  in  the  social 
world  brought  against  it.  At  the  height  of  its  excellence 
and  in  the  midst  of  its  glory  it  was  broken. 

For  four  or  five  centuries  the  modern  world  has  been 
trying  to  escape  from  the  lingering  implications  of  endless 
fragments  of  this  old  hypothesis  and  from  the  false  educa- 
tions that  were  developed  in  the  ages  when  the  hypothesis 
was  still  under  scientific  test.  Emerson  said,  "Plato  plays 
havoc  with  our  originalities,"  meaning  that  since  Plato  no 
one  has  been  able  to  say  or  think  anything  new.  That  is 
not  true.  But  there  is  a  sense  in  which  Emerson's  state- 
ment is  most  profoundly  true.  Under  the  dominance  of 
the  Platonic  system  there  is  scant  room  for  anything  new  or 
original  in  the  sense  of  science.  To  be  sure,  Plato  has  been 
one  of  the  most  "suggestive"  thinkers  of  all  time;  many 
ages  have  returned  to  him  for  "inspiration,"  not  the  least 
of  which  was  the  Renaissance,  the  first  full  expression  of 
the  "modern  spirit."  But  Plato's  social  and  educational 
system  offers  no  fundamental  inspiration  in  the  modern 
struggle  for  democracy;  its  structure  is  too  much  wrought 
out  of  and  into  the  limitations  of  the  folkway  ages.  In 
this  sense  Plato  laid  the  foundations  for  the  building  up 
of  the  larger  folkways  of  the  Middle  Ages;  and  in  this 
same  sense  escape  from  the  domination  of  Plato  consti- 
tutes the  greatest  problem  of  the  present,  whether  in  social 
organization,  religious  attitude,  moral  conception,  or  edu- 
cation. 


94  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

We  must  now  go  on  to  discover  how  for  fifteen  hundred 
years  the  task  of  rebuilding  or  building  the  larger  "folk- 
ways" under  the  leadership  of  Platonism  went  on;  how 
diverse  elements  were  conquered  and  absorbed;  how  new 
problems  brought  the  development  of  new  controls  and  new 
sanctions,  all  in  the  old  spirit ;  and  how  in  due  time  all  this 
building  came  to  its  great  climax.  We  shall  see  how  for 
fifteen  centuries  the  human  mind  was  subjected  to  the  dis- 
cipline of  this  all-inclusive  system.  After  that  we  shall 
face  the  task  of  seeing  how  the  human  mind  broke  away 
from  this  all-inclusive  system,  declared  it  inadequate,  and 
undertook  the  building  of  new  systems  with  new  aims,  new 
purposes,  new  materials,  and  new  tools.  But  before  tak- 
ing up  this  task  we  must  linger  for  a  moment  to  consider 
the  fifth  answer  to  the  old  question  of  Crito,  the  answer 
of  Aristotle. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   FIFTH    ANSWER:      THE   WORK    OF    ARISTOTLE 
(386-322  B.C.) 

WE  need  not  linger  long  in  our  discussion  of  the  work 
of  Aristotle  at  this  time,  for,  while  his  general  point  of 
view  was  more  practicable  than  that  of  Socrates,  and  more 
scientific  than  that  of  Plato,  it  meant  very  little  as  an  edu- 
cational program  at  that  time,  and  it  had  little  if  any  in- 
fluence upon  the  educational  developments  of  the  immedi- 
ately succeeding  ages.  We  shall  find  its  real  values  emerg- 
ing after  fifteen  hundred  years,  but  we  must  note  its  main 
characteristics  here. 

The  Historic  Background. — Aristotle  was  fortunate 
enough  to  live  in  that  brief  period  when  Philip  of  Macedon 
and  Alexander  the  Great  had  once  again  made  a  secure 
social  order  in  the  midst  of  the  universal  social  confusion. 
Such  a  period  of  social  security  and  stability  gave  oppor- 
tunity for  the  reappearance  of  the  old  doctrine  of  Socrates, 
that  knowledge,  ideas,  develop  out  of  the  processes  of 
human  experience.  Aristotle  renews  this  doctrine  after  a 
fashion.  But  the  uncertainties  of  the  past  and  the  no  less 
real  uncertainties  of  the  future  made  a  full  reliance  upon 
that  Socratic  principle  precarious,  if  not  impossible. 
There  must  be,  as  in  Plato,  some  principle. not  involved  in 
the  uncertainties  of  human  experience  upon  which  social 
order  can  depend.  Hence  Aristotle  shows  a  curious  blend- 
ing of  attitudes  that  are  both  Socratic  and  Platonic  in 
origin. 

Now  in  those  stirring  years  from  the  great  awakening  in 

95 


96  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Greece  that  came  with  the  Persian  "Wars  to  the  age  of 
Alexander  there  had  been  a  wonderful  extension  of  human 
knowledge,  with  wide  explorations  into  the  hidden  regions 
of  nature  and  human  nature.  Aristotle  was  the  first  to 
recognize  the  extent  of  these  developments,  and  he  made 
the  first  attempts  to  comprehend,  organize,  and  systema- 
tize them.  He  thus  attempts  to  gather  together  all  the 
knowledges  that  have  grown  up  (the  Socratic  attitude) 
and  to  enclose  these  materials  in  complete  systems  (the  Pla- 
tonic attitude).  Just  as  Alexander  attempted  to  organize 
the  civic  turbulence  of  the  times  into  the  forms  of  a  great 
world-empire,  so  Aristotle  attempts  to  organize  the  intel- 
lectual turbulence  of  the  age  into  logical  systems.  He 
gathered  its  treasures  from  all  the  past;  he  carried  his  in- 
vestigations into  all  the  ranges  of  contemporary  knowl- 
edge; he  laid  the  foundations  for  intellectual  dominion 
over  the  scattered  elements  of  knowledge. 

Aristotle  as  Scientist. — Aristotle  is  the  world's  leading 
example  of  the  deductive  scientist.  It  is  true  that  he  was 
something  of  an  observer,  and,  to  the  extent  that  observa- 
tion enters  into  the  modern  inductive  method,  Aristotle 
foreshadowed  modern  science.  But  observation  covers  a 
multitude  of  intellectual  shortcomings.  Aristotle  fre- 
quently went  observing  with  his  mind  already  made  up,  in 
which  case  his  "observations"  succeeded  in  finding  nothing 
but  illustrations  of  his  preconceived  principles.  Perhaps, 
since  we  shall  have  occasion  to  deal  with  this  aspect  of  the 
subject  again  and  again,  it  may  be  proper  to  discuss  here 
the  differences  between  various  sorts  of  observation  and 
various  kinds  of  science.  There  are  three  definitely  dis- 
tinct sorts  of  observation :  first,  observation  with  an  ' '  empty 
mind,"  if  that  be  possible, — just  "looking  'round."  This 
begins  nowhere,  and  ends  nowhere ;  it  has  no  plan  of  work 
and  no  criteria  of  accomplishment.  If  it  produces  any- 


THE  WORK  OF  ARISTOTLE  97 

thing,  it  is  wholly  by  accident.  Such  "observation"  is  not 
science  at  all.  Second,  observation  with  the  mind  already 
made  up,  with  principles  already  established,  and  with 
categories  finished.  This  begins  with  certainties  and  any- 
thing new  comes  to  be  merely  an  illustration  of  some  old 
principles.  This  is  the  deductive  method  and  is  a  proper 
part  of  science,  but  only  when  it  is  used  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  a  way  through  some  wilderness  of  experience  which 
is  later  to  be  subjected  to  further  critical  reexamination. 
The  third  sort  of  observation  is  that  of  true  induction,  in 
which  the  mind  has,  of  course,  its  principles,  its  categories, 
its  standards  to  be  used,  but  to  be  used  as  hypotheses,  that 
is,  to  be  held  subject  to  correction,  criticism,  reconstruction, 
even  to  complete  denial,  if  the  facts  warrant.  It  should  be 
seen  that  in  modern  science  there  is  a  certain  blending  of 
the  deductive  and  the  inductive  methods,  but  in  ancient 
science  there  was  practically  nothing  of  the  modern  prin- 
ciple of  inductive  observation.  Aristotle  himself  never 
fully  reached  this  procedure.  Aristotle  is  the  "father  of 
deductive  science,"  the  originator  of  many  systematic  be- 
ginnings of  human  knowledge,  the  first  organizing  mind 
giving  form  to  many  sciences,  including  psychology,  logic, 
ethics,  and  esthetics.  He  was,  for  that  time,  what  may 
rightly  be  called  a  "world-mind."  He  gave  impetus  to 
the  organization  of  knowledge,  an  impetus  that  was  to  have 
great  issue  in  the  next,  the  so-called  "Alexandrian"  age. 

But  he  was  essentially  an  "imperialist"  in  science,  as 
Alexander  was  an  imperialist  in  politics.  His  influence  in 
the  next  age  turned  men  toward  compilation  of  existent 
knowledge  and  away  from  creative  work.  His  comprehen- 
sive world-mind  set  all  his  followers  to  imitating.  They 
all  become  second-  or  third-rate  men,  filling  the  library  at 
Alexandria  with  extensive  systematizations  of,  and  com- 
mentaries upon,  the  world's  existent  knowledge.  The  sig- 


98  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

nificance  of  Aristotle  in  the  history  of  thought  and  edu- 
cation is  summed  up  by  Eucken  as  follows:  <(He  never 
has  led  a  progressive  movement  of  thought  nor  ever  af- 
forded to  any  a  valuable  stimulus.  But  he  has  always 
proved  valuable,  in  fact  indispensable,  whenever  existing 
bodies  of  thought  required  extension,  logical  arrangement, 
and  systematic  completion. ' ' 1 

The  Influence  of  Aristotle. — Aside  from  a  certain  general 
stimulus  to  collecting  and  editing  of  existent  materials, 
Aristotle  failed  of  productive  educational  influence  in  the 
ancient  world.  Shortly  after  his  death  most  of  his  works 
were  lost  or  carried  away  into  the  East,  to  be  the  possession 
of  Eastern  scholars  for  a  thousand  years,  to  be  lost  to  the 
memory  of  Europe.  Plato  filled  the  imaginations  of  men; 
his  eternal  world  of  ideal  realities  so  much  more  com- 
pletely met  the  needs  of  the  ages  of  confusion  that  fol- 
lowed Alexander 's  death  that  Aristotle 's  way  of  stating  the 
problem  was  not  missed.  So  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years  he  remained  in  the  obscurity  of  the  East.  And  when 
he  came  into  the  West  again,  he  came  not  by  the  will  of 
European  influences,  or  from  Greece;  he  came  by  the  way 
of  Africa,  brought  into  Europe  by  the  Saracens,  and  his 
first  interpreters  to  the  astonished  Middle  Ages  were  cer- 
tain great  philosophers  in  the  universities  of  the  Moslem 
Empire. 

But  Aristotle  came  back  into  the  consciousness  of  west- 
ern Europe  at  a  time  when  he  was  most  needed,  when  the 
final  touches  were  wanting  to  the  completion  of  the  great 
folkways  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  work  that  was  be- 
gun under  the  influence  of  Plato  was  about  to  fail,  because 
Plato  was,  after  all,  too  human.  Aristotle  arrived  just  in 
time  to  complete  this  work  of  the  fifteen  hundred  years  of 
Platonic  influence  which  Plato  himself  could  not  complete. 

i  Eucken:  "The  Problem  of  Human  Life,"  pp.  72-3. 


THE  WORK  OF  ARISTOTLE  99 

His  great  capacity  for  organization,  for  building  systems, 
came  into  excellent  use.  His  logic  was  the  one  thing 
needed  to  squeeze  all  the  rebellious  human  elements  into 
the  comprehensive  world-system  and  make  them  submit  to 
the  central  authority  of  existent  fact.  He  thus  completed 
and  rounded  off,  in  thought  at  least,  the  most  magnificent 
conception  of  civilization  and  social  order  the  world  has 
ever  known.  He  still  speaks  eloquently  in  the  pages  of 
Thomas  Aquinas  and  Dante. 

But  we  must  take  leave  of  him  here  to  follow  the  thread 
of  system-building  and  system  destruction  until  we  meet 
him  again,  fifteen  hundred  years  later,  at  the  height  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  ALEXANDRIAN   PERIOD 

HISTORY  moves  on,  and  old  problems  are  lost  to  view  in 
the  changes  of  social  conditions.  The  question  which  Crito 
asked  Socrates  had,  by  the  time  of  Aristotle  with  his  fifth 
answer,  no  more  than  a  theoretical  interest.  Aristotle  was 
not,  in  reality,  answering  that  question  at  all.  The  Greek 
world  had  passed  away;  Alexander's  brief  empire  of  the 
world  was  passing  likewise;  Rome,  looming  larger  in  the 
West,  was  still  unsuspected  of  world-ambitions.  The  com- 
mon life  of  the  world,  that  world  of  work  by  which  the 
philosophers  are  fed,  had  settled  its  own  perplexing  ques- 
tions in  its  own  groping  ways.  The  life  of  the  intellect,  at 
least  of  Platonic  ideas,  was  not  for  it!  The  intellectual 
greatness  of  the  period  from  Socrates  to  Aristotle  was  not 
continued  in  the  next  centuries.  The  world  settled  down 
to  the  task  of  digesting  and  assimilating  the  materials 
already  discovered.  Rather,  that  was  one  of  its  interests, 
but  another  problem  was  keenly  felt  also,  as  we  shall  see. 

The  Dominance  of  the  Platonic  Conception  of  the 
World. — Though  the  intellectual  life  of  the  world  still  cen- 
tered at  Athens  for  another  century  at  least,  the  period 
following  Aristotle  is  called  the  Alexandrian,  because  the 
most  striking  influences  and  the  most  distinctive  work  came 
from  Alexandria  in  Egypt.  This  age  was  a  period  of  ''fill- 
ing in"  of  the  details  of  the  great  pictures  that  had  been 
worked  out  by  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.  Socrates,  of 
course,  was  but  a  memory;  Aristotle  rapidly  passed  from 
sight;  the  dominant  mood  of  the  age  is  a  Platonic  mood. 

100 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD  101 

There  is  need  of  a  world  beyond  the  world  of  the  senses, 
a  world  of  knowledge,  of  intellect,  of  ideas,  into  which  the 
superior  individual  can  retreat  to  find  sanctuary  from  the 
storms  of  the  world!  This  Platonic  world  of  knowledge 
and  ideas  became  the  object  of  exploration  by  all  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  times. 

But  there  was  a  great  dearth  of  master  minds.  Barren- 
ness and  pedantry  are  almost  completely  the  marks  of  the 
period.  There  was  much  research,  but  almost  no  creative 
activity  of  mind.  Reverence  for  the  old  masters  destroyed 
intellectual  independence,  producing  formalism  in  place  of 
freedom.  There  was  almost  no  new  writing  of  a  construc- 
tive sort,  but  endless  editions  of  the  works  of  the  mas- 
ters, such  as  grammars,  commentaries,  and  expositions, 
appeared.  In  Alexandria  various  languages  and  cultures 
came  into  close  contact.  Comparative  studies  arose. 
Translations  from  one  language  to  another  were  made, 
among  them  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  into  the 
Greek,  giving  that  version  known  ever  since  as  the  "Sep- 
tuagint."  Later  there  were  "accommodations"  between 
these  various  cultures,  out  of  which  arose  some  of  the 
strange  philosophies  and  religious  and  mystical  sects  of 
the  Roman  times. 

Development  of  Sects. — The  teachings  of  the  masters 
and  the  contacts  of  cultures  brought  about  the  development 
of  philosophic  "schools,"  each  with  its  ideal  of  life.  It 
must  be  noted  that  the  ideal  of  the  age  was  not  man  as  a 
member  of  a  social  order,  but  a  sort  of  abstract,  individual 
man.  What  were  the  characteristics  of  this  ideal  individ- 
ual? These  are,  of  course,  educational  as  well  as  social 
ideals.  Among  the  Greeks  two  such  ideals  appeared. 
First,  the  Stoic  sage.  For  the  sage  the  natural  world  is  the 
expression  of  reason.  Hence  conformity  with  nature  is 
conformity  with  reason ;  convention  is  good  when  it  is  nat- 


102  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ural  and  reasonable.  "Keep  the  straight  course,  following 
your  own  nature  and  the  nature  of  the  universe;  and  the 
way  of  both  is  one."  "Live  with  the  gods.  He  lives  with 
the  gods  who  ever  follows  his  mind  and  reason. ' '  This  is  a 
variation  of  the  Platonic  conception,  but  only  a  variation. 

The  second  of  these  later  Greek  ideals  was  that  of  the 
Epicurean  philosopher:  "The  end  of  our  living  is  to  be 
free  from  pain  (that  is,  from  all  useless  desires)  and  fears. 
And  when  once  we  have  reached  this,  all  the  tempest  of 
the  soul  is  laid."  Hence  all  systems,  whether  of  science, 
ethics,  or  religion,  that  tend  to  arouse  and  encourage  men's 
fears  or  desires  must  be  evil.  The  most  complete  freedom 
from  desire,  from  fear,  from  ambition,  from  pain,  is  the 
most  complete  life.  Compare  with  this  Plato's  "justice" 
as  set  forth  in  the  Eepublic. 

In  addition  to  these  two  dominant  ideals  of  the  Greek 
part  of  the  Alexandrian  world,  it  is  worth  while  to  call  at- 
tention to  another  ideal  that  developed  among  the  He- 
brews, the  "Suffering  Servant  of  Jehovah,"  since  at  a 
later  time  this  ideal  comes  in  upon  the  Greco-Roman  world 
with  conquering  power.  That  ideal  is  expressed  in  the 
well-known  words:  "He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions, he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the  chastisement 
of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are 
healed."  A  more  intelligible  statement  of  the  same  ideal 
is  found  in  a  later  formulation:  "He  that  would  save 
his  life  must  lose  it ;  he  that  is  greatest  among  you,  let  him 
become  the  servant  of  all."  This  conception  becomes  the 
most  effective  weapon  in  the  later  struggles  of  mankind  to 
escape  from  the  iron  rigors  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  Fate  of  the  Common  Life. — The  intellectualisms  and 
the  scholarship  of  Alexandria  cut  the  world  in  two,  into 
horizontal  strata.  An  upper  level  of  "superior"  minds  is 
busy  with  the  culture  of  the  world,  its  knowledge,  its  intel- 


103 

lectual  interests.  These  build  citadels  of  culture  where 
they  dwell  apart  from  the  world  of  common  interests.  At 
the  same  time,  however,  they  must  be  fed  and  clothed. 
Hence  on  a  lower  level  the  workers  must  perform  their 
allotted  share,  finding  their  satisfactions  in  their  work  and 
in  their  religion  which  promises  them  more  or  less  of  a 
happier  time  in  some  other  world,  or  at  least  sweet  forget- 
fulness  in  death.  Now  and  then,  perhaps,  the  workers 
found  help  in  some  crumb  of  culture  that  fell  from  the  high 
tables  of  learning.  But  all  too  frequently  common  life,  de- 
nied its  share  in  the  intelligence  "which  makes  men  free," 
falls  a  prey  to  all  forms  of  religious  doctrines  which,  while 
they  interest  and  even  soothe,  may  also  destroy.  The  Alex- 
andrian Age  gradually  witnessed  the  growth  of  that  terri- 
ble mingling  of  religious  cults,  good,  bad,  false,  true, 
vicious,  indifferent,  which  finally  included  everything 
known,  and  which  in  Athens  added  even  one  more  touch — 
a  statue  to  ''The  Unknown  God." 

What  could  the  education  of  the  common  life  be  in  the 
midst  of  such  developments  ?  Little  beyond  the  practice  of 
daily  toil.  Socrates  had  promised  something  more,  some 
share  in  the  life  of  intelligence.  But  Plato  had  consigned 
the  common  mass  to  the  life  of  unilluminated  toil;  and  in 
the  dominance  of  the  Platonic  view  of  the  world  through  all 
this  period  there  was  no  hope  for  the  common  life,  save 
such  hope  as  ever  lies  in  work.  The  discipline  of  centu- 
ries of  work  will  prepare  the  workers  for  the  democracy 
of  the  far  future. 

The  Growth  of  Science. — At  Alexandria  some  consider- 
able work  in  the  physical  sciences  was  attempted.  It  is  in 
the  Alexandrian  Age  that  Euclid  laid  the  foundations  of 
geometry,  Apollonius  began  the  study  of  conic  sections, 
Archimedes  carried  through  some  still-famous  experiments 
in  physics,  Eratosthenes  computed  the  diameter  of  the 


104  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

earth,  Hero  and  Philo  worked  out  some  fundamental  prin- 
ciples in  dynamics,  and  Hipparchus  laid  the  foundations  of 
that  ultimate  knowledge  of  the  universe  which  was  summed 
up  in  the  cosmography  of  Ptolemy.  These  were  real 
achievements,  but  they  seem  to  lie  outside  the  currents  of 
the  times,  to  wait  unnoticed  for  a  thousand  years. 

The  Age  of  Schools. — On  the  whole,  it  was  a  juiceless 
age,  a  text-book  age,  an  age  of  endless  repetition  of  the  au- 
thoritative statements  of  the  masters,  an  age  of  schools.  It 
was  an  age  in  which  a  type  of  conventionalized  intellect 
was  "made  to  order"  out  of  the  books,  the  apotheosis  of 
Plato.  Education  came  under  the  control  of  the  state,  at 
least  in  Athens.  In  Athens  were  the  older  schools,  the 
Academy  of  Plato,  the  Lyceum  of  Aristotle,  the  Stoa  of  the 
Stoics,  the  school  of  Isocrates  the  rhetorician,  and  finally,  at 
a  later  date  (probably  in  the  second  century  A.  D.),  the  uni- 
versity, which  was  really  but  the  integration  and  extension 
of  these  older  schools.  In  Alexandria  the  great  library 
grew  to  amazing  proportions;  with  it  developed  the  mu- 
seum. But  as ''we  have  seen  that  formalism  was  the  char- 
acteristic of  the  age,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  the 
library,  with  its  endless  opportunities  for  copying  authori- 
ties, was  the  central  factor  in  the  "  University  of  Alexan- 
dria." 

In  these  schools  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic  and  philosophy, 
now  become  little  else  than  endless  dialectic,  were  the 
studies.  The  basis  of  most  of  this  development  for  four 
hundred  years  was  reverence  for  the  written  word.  Hence 
the  age  appears  as  one  of  the  least  creative  in  all  history. 
But  it  performed  a  great  service  in  the  furtherance  of  the 
general  Platonic  organization  of  civilization;  it  molded 
men's  minds  to  the  belief  in  authority,  the  fixed  intellectual 
and  moral  order.  It  was  a  step  toward  the  complete  or- 
ganization of  the  civilized  world  into  one  gigantic  system. 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  PERIOD  105 

It  was  educating  the  race  to  get  ready  for  the  all-inclusive 
folkways. 

The  Coming  of  Rome. — As  Rome  rises  more  and  more 
into  prominence  in  the  West,  with  her  growing  dominance 
of  the  political  horizon,  with  her  growing  sense  of  world- 
empire  and  organized  civic  life,  she  comes  to  seem  the  em- 
bodiment of  all  authority,  all  system,  all  organization,  all 
control.  She  may  even  be  (who  knows?)  that  ultimate 
political  order,  preexistent,  eternal,  the  idea  of  social  or- 
ganization, for  which  Plato  longed.  It  is  true  that  for  a 
moment  and  instinctively,  racially,  the  Greeks  fought  for 
their  independence  from  Roman  control.  But  one  battle 
was  enough  to  convince  them  of  the  uselessness  of  the 
struggle.  Corinth  was  destroyed  in  146  B.C.,  and  the  story 
of  Greece  as  an  independent  nation  or  people  came  to  an 
end.  But  Greek  thought  had  been  so  long  dominated  by 
Platonic  conceptions  that  Greece  soon  found  herself  quite 
at  home  in  the  social  and  political  structure  of  the  Romans, 
and  she  turned  with  vigor  to  the  intellectual  conquest  of 
her  conquerors.  In  this  she  was  largely  successful.  What 
Rome  lacked  of  power  to  theorize,  Greece  supplied;  what 
Greece  lacked  of  practicality,  Rome  supplied.  The  Roman 
political  and  social  order  furnished  the  security,  the  system, 
which  made  an  admirable  background  for  the  actualization 
of  that  empire  of  control  which  Plato  found  to  be  the  ideal 
of  the  universe.  Rome  furnished  the  necessary  social 
structure  out  of  which  could  be  built  up  those  larger  folk- 
ways which  should,  in  their  good  time,  once  more  reduce 
the  round  of  life  to  fixed  and  rigid  routine.  Greece  fur- 
nished the  intellectual  content  and  the  method,  the  logic 
and  the  sanctions,  by  which  those  larger  folkways  should 
be  organized.  Caesar  was  the  political  organizer,  Plato  the 
intellectual;  and  when  Plato  failed  because  he  was  too 
human  to  follow  Roman  authority  further,  Aristotle  (as  we 


106  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

have  noted)  came  to  the  rescue  and  gave  the  Intellectual 
help  that  carried  the  effort  through  to  full  conclusion. 

We  must  now  turn  to  a  survey  of  the  Roman  contribu- 
tions to  this  process  of  reconstructing  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    ROMAN    CONTRIBUTION    TO    THE    LARGER    FOLKWAYS 

Education  Under  the  Primitive  Eoman  Folkways. — As 

in  all  primitive  communities,  education  in  early  Rome  was 
provided  for  in  the  customs,  habits,  and  traditions  of  the 
folkways.  Rome  began  as  a  small  group  among  hostile 
neighboring  groups.  Her  folkways  developed  out  of  these 
conditions,  and  her  education  repeated  her  folkways. 
Preservation  of  the  group,  keeping  unchanged  the  customs, 
habits,  and  methods  that  had  made  her  life  successful  so  far, 
training  of  the  youth  in  the  preservation  of  the  folkways, 
in  military  efficiency,  and  in  the  work  by  which  the  group 
lived — these  activities  made  up  the  life  and  education. 
Obedience,  reverence,  industry,  frugality,  seriousness, 
courage,  and  eventual  gravity  were  virtues  native  to  Roman 
soil  and  Roman  development. 

Children  learned  to  read  and  write,  if  at  all,  in  their 
own  homes  in  the  early  period;  and  they  learned  the  stir- 
ring military  songs  and  ballads  of  common  folklore.  Girls 
learned  the  tasks  of  the  housewife  in  their  own  homes ;  boys 
probably  largely  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  their  fathers 
as  to  occupations.  One  thing  seems  sure:  In  the  early 
centuries,  while  the  Roman  folkways  remained  intact,  in- 
dustry and  the  other  substantial  civic  virtues  became  or- 
ganized into  the  character  of  all  the  children.  Constantia, 
constant  firmness;  virtus,  the  fortitude  and  strength  of  a 
man;  pietas,  reverence  for  the  gods  and  for  the  folkways; 
modestas,  self  -repression ;  and  gravitas,  the  dignity  fitting 

107 


108  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  man  and  the  citizen — these  were  the  five  great  virtues 
of  manhood. 

There  were  no  schools  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word. 
About  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.  c.  Rome  came  upon 
what  may  be  called  the  "Oriental  level"  of  her  develop- 
ment. The  so-called  ' '  Twelve  Tables ' '  of  the  law  were  writ- 
ten down;  the  folkways  became  more  definite  and  fixed. 
From  that  time  on  education  became  more  institutional, 
with  these  Tables  as  the  curriculum.1  It  may  be  seen  from 
these  Tables  that  the  Roman  was  a  complex  character.  He 
enjoyed  the  conflicts  of  the  courts;  he  lacked  imagination 
and  idealisms;  he  was  practical,  systematic;  he  was  ex- 
tremely pious,  in  the  folkway  sense ;  he  was  lofty-minded  in 
thinking  about  his  own  community,  brave  in  the  presence 
of  community  dangers,  obedient  to  the  death  when  duty 
called,  but  he  was  at  times  coarse,  rapacious,  and  cruel  to 
his  captured  enemies  and  to  those  who  did  not  belong  to  his 
own  group,  a  virtue  he  shared  with  most  primitive  peoples. 

Later  Educational  Developments. — We  note  two  main 
tendencies  in  the  Roman  character,  viz.,  the  tendency  to- 
ward magnanimity  of  mind,  and  the  tendency  toward 
cruelty,  coarseness,  and  rapacity.  The  development  of 
Roman  history  helps  each  of  these  tendencies  along.  The 
coming  of  Greek  culture  tends  to  the  development  of  the 
finer  qualities,  at  first  at  least ;  but  the  rise  of  imperial  am- 
bitions and  the  growth  of  world-power  tends  to  develop  the 
other  side.  Let  us  see. 

In  the  middle  of  the  third  century  B.  c.  Greek  influence 
began  to  be  felt  in  Rome.  Greek  literature  was  introduced 
in  translations  and  Latin  literature  was  stimulated  thereby. 
The  Greek  school  soon  began  to  take  the  place  of  the  older 
Roman  Ludus,  or  play-school.  Greek  teachers,  mostly 
slaves,  came  to  Rome,  and  the  Greek  language  was  studied. 

i  For  these  tables  see  Monroe:  "Source  Book  of  the  History  of 
Education,"  pp.  334-45. 


ROME'S  SHARE  IN  THE  NEW  FOLKWAYS      109 

Rhetoricians  and  philosophers  also  caine  or  were  devel- 
oped, and  in  such  numbers  as  to  frighten  the  senate.  In 
161  B.C.  and  again  in  92  B.C.  efforts  were  made  to  stem  the 
tide  of  this  Greek  influence  and  turn  back  the  education 
of  the  people  into  the  old  folkway  currents.  "Our  ances- 
tors have  ordained  what  instruction  it  is  fitting  their  chil- 
dren should  receive  and  what  schools  they  should  attend. 
These  novelties,  contrary  to  the  customs  and  instructions 
of  our  ancestors,  we  neither  approve  nor  do  they  seem  to  us 
good."  But  the  fight  was  a  hopeless  one,  and  though  the 
progress  of  Greek  culture  was  slow,  it  was  sure ;  and  in  the 
imperial  period  it  completely  triumphed  as  the  method  of 
school  education. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  Roman  energy  was  sweeping  the 
neighboring  nations  into  the  protecting  care  of  the  growing 
empire.  Roman  courage,  practicality,  and  imaginativeness 
made  the  Roman  armies  invincible.  Rome  drew  on  toward 
being  the  ruler  of  the  world.  Her  practical  courage  and 
legal  sense  helped  to  organize  discordant  elements  into  a 
sort  of  imperial  unity.  Using  brutality  where  that  was 
needed,  or  practical  intelligence  where  that  was  needed,  she 
slowly  conquered  the  world,  brought  to  the  endless  ages  of 
warfare  the  experience  of  the  "Pax  Roinana,"  won  a  world- 
wide peace  by  "fighting  for  it,"  and  "civilized"  whole  peo- 
ples in  a  day  by  handing  down  her  ready-made  civilization 
from  above.  When  it  became  apparent  that  Roman  politi- 
cal machinery  made  such  an  admirable  setting  for  the  Pla- 
tonic culture  of  the  Greeks,  protest  against  Greek  culture 
came  to  an  end.  Greek  logic  furnished  the  intellectual 
weapons  for  the  justification  of  these  Roman  methods  of 
civilizing  the  world ;  and  Roman  legions  were  the  objective 
embodiment  of  the  absolute  sway  of  Greek  culture.  The 
Roman  army  was  an  ideal  representation  of  Plato's  "mili- 
tary class,"  who  were  to  take  orders  from  the  philosophers 


110  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  to  keep  the  common  masses  in  control.  To  be  sure,  it 
can  scarcely  be  claimed  that  many  of  the  Roman  emperors 
fulfilled  Plato's  ideal  of  a  philosopher,  but  in  the  empire 
there  was  a  governing  class  which  gave  orders  to  the  sol- 
diery, and  this  impersonal  military  class,  fully  freed  from 
all  personal  qualities,  did  keep  the  masses  of  men  under 
control  for  the  most  part.  This  whole  task  of  organization 
and  administration  of  the  empire  was  no  small  accomplish- 
ment, for  the  government  was  gradually  extending  its  sway 
over  wide  and  far-reaching  areas.  Within  these  were  found 
many  sorts  of  geographical  condition,  with  many  kinds  of 
folkways,  great  variety  of  more  or  less  localized  industries 
and  occupations,  with  their  accompaniment  of  varying  de- 
sires and  prejudices,  many  languages  and  many  religions. 
All  of  which  had  to  be  appreciated,  largely  coordinated, 
and  administered  from  one  capital  under  one  general  con- 
ception of  law.  It  is  true  that  this  administrative  concep- 
tion of  the  law  was  rather  Stoic  than  Platonic.  That  is  to 
say,  the  Roman  found  his  basis  for  the  conception  of  a  uni- 
versal empire  with  a  common  law  in  the  Stoic  conception 
that  nature,  and  especially  human  nature,  embodied  a  "nat- 
ural law  of  reason"  which,  when  fully  understood  and  ap- 
plied, would  give  the  world  completely  organized  social 
order.  This  conception  is,  however,  just  a  variant  of  the 
Platonic  view;  it  is  Platonism  toned  down  to  the  needs  of 
practical  administration.  At  any  rate,  whether  Platonic  or 
Stoic,  the  Greeks  furnish  the  organizing  intelligence  and 
the  sense  of  an  ideal  and  all-embracing  moral  and  social 
order  which  the  statesman  must  rule;  the  Romans  furnish 
the  practical  mechanisms  of  discipline  and  control,  and  the 
actual  working  rules  of  the  law.  In  these  two  aspects  of 
experience,  theory  and  practice,  are  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  Greco-Roman  Empire,  ruler  and  arbiter  of  the  world 
in  social  custom,  morality,  religion,  and  education. 


ROME'S  SHARE  IN  THE  NEW  FOLKWAYS      111 

Schools  of  the  Imperial  Period. — Just  as  back  of  the 
Greco-Roman  program  of  conquest  with  its  "benevolent  as- 
similation" of  alien  peoples  stood  the  Roman  legions  with 
their  power  to  do  what  the  governing  powers  determined, 
so  back  of  the  Greco-Roman  program  of  civilization  stood 
the  "schoolmaster,"  or  intellectual  taskmaster.  Wherever 
there  was  a  school,  there  the  arbitrary  materials  of  Greek 
learning  were  imposed,  or  the  no  less  intellectual  materials 
of  Latin  culture.  Of  course,  just  as  in  old  China,  some 
youths  learned  these  lessons.  But  the  point  is  that  educa- 
tion was  simply  conceived  as  a  means  of  continuing  the  vic- 
torious progress  of  the  Empire.  Individuals,  provinces, 
peoples,  nations — these  count  for  nothing  as  against  the 
Empire.  The  Empire  must  prevail ;  and  though  there  were 
periods  of  good-natured  tolerance  when  it  was  considered 
that  any  one  who  was  not  against  the  Empire  was  for  it, 
yet  whenever  occasion  arose  the  Empire  could  deal  harshly 
with  its  rebellious  subjects  and  did  not  hesitate  to  destroy 
in  order  to  establish  control.  For  instance,  take  the  de- 
struction of  the  Jewish  nation  in  70  A.D.  In  the  case  of 
this  nation  refusal  to  accept  some  little  share  of  Roman 
culture  brought  about  the  final  catastrophe. 

The  Ludus  was  the  lowest  school,  dating  from  pre-Hel- 
lenic  times  perhaps.  Reading  and  writing  were  taught,  and 
some  simple  arithmetic  with  simple  counters,  etc.  The 
method  of  teaching  was  the  purely  memorizing  sort,  in- 
cluding the  imitating  of  the  teacher.  A  militaristic  sort  of 
brutality  pervaded  the  schools,  and  the  teachers  were  noted 
more  for  their  ability  to  ' '  discipline ' '  than  for  their  power 
to  teach. 

In  the  school  of  the  Grammaticus  foundations  were  laid  in 
literature,  the  writings  of  the  historians,  perhaps,  and  some 
simple  elements  of  very  rudimentary  science,  including  the 
little  that  was  known  of  mathematics  (which  was  very  little 


112  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  very  unsatisfactory  because  the  Roman  system  of  no- 
tation made  progress  practically  impossible).  We  may  add 
to  these  items,  perhaps,  a  little  music,  with  here  and  there 
a  trifle  of  elementary  philosophy  or  dialectic. 

The  schools  of  rhetoric  carried  on  the  process,  for  a  few 
selected  students,  into  the  training  for  public  life,  into  the 
law  courts,  the  forum,  etc.  Gradually  the  "orator"  came 
to  be  the  highest  ideal  of  the  educated  person;  the  term  is 
rather  inclusive  and  is  not  always  clearly  denned.  Cicero 
(106-43  B.C.)  first  clearly  set  forth  the  ideal.  For  him  the 
orator  probably  includes  all  that  Cicero  himself  was — phi- 
losopher, rhetorician,  soldier,  statesman,  patriot,  historian, 
and  poet.  Later  Quintilian  (35-100  (?)  A.D.),  himself  a 
teacher,  set  forth  in  great  detail  the  same  ideal,  the  orator, 
who  was  to  be  identical  with  the  cultivated  man  of  affairs 
and  broad  public  interests.  These  conceptions  of  the  edu- 
cated man  represent  the  high  tides  of  theorizing  about  edu- 
cation in  the  Roman  Empire,  at  least  in  the  West.  They 
never  became  effective  in  the  actual  educational  procedures 
of  the  Empire.  The  state  controlled  all  education,  and  these 
ideals  are  far  too  liberal  for  the  mood  of  the  times.  The 
actual  social  situation  made  a  liberalized  conception  of  edu- 
cation impossible  of  application.  The  imperial  ideal  and 
organization,  fighting  with  savage  or  half -civilized  peoples 
on  many  frontiers,  could  have  little  sympathy  with  any- 
thing liberal.  Imperialism  and  a  liberal  education  are  not 
congenial. 

But  if  a  liberal  program  had  been  possible  in  practice, 
there  was  no  such  program  to  be  had.  Psychology  was  not 
yet  prepared  to  analyze  the  problem  of  education.  The 
only  conception  of  method  was  the  imperial  one  of  force, 
and  in  a  mechanical  age  the  conception  of  the  processes  by 
which  the  liberalizing  of  intelligence  and  the  humanizing  of 
society  go  on  was  utterly  lacking.  Socrates  had  proposed, 


ROME'S  SHARE  IN  THE  NEW  FOLKWAYS      113 

it  will  be  remembered,  such  a  humanized  education  in  Ath- 
ens generations  ago,  but  there  had  been  no  room  for  it  in 
Athens  and  there  was  less  room  for  it  in  Rome.  No,  the 
world  will  wait  many  generations  more  for  the  full  ex- 
ploration of  the  processes  by  which  a  liberal  education 
comes  to  be  an  education,  in  which  machinery,  habit,  custom, 
tradition,  folkway,  can  be  thwarted  and  the  freed  spirit  can 
come  into  its  own.  Certainly  in  Rome  such  understanding 
will  not  arise,  though  maybe  even  in  some  distant  part  of 
the  Empire  some  hint  of  it  may  appear.  Who  can  tell  ? 

But  Rome  is  just  Rome,  extremely  earnest  and  precise  in 
her  conceptions  of  law  and  in  working  out  the  consequences 
of  law.  The  Romans  were  good-natured,  for  the  most  part, 
in  their  submission  to  law.  At  the  same  time  they  were 
•'cold,  calculating,  selfish,  without  enthusiasm  or  the  power 
of  awakening  enthusiasm,"  "proud,  overbearing,  cruel, 
rapacious,"  yet  "distinguished  by  self-control  and  an  iron 
will"  and  with  few  "graces  of  character."  The  Roman 
Empire  was  the  instrument  of  a  great  organizing  movement. 
The  known  world  was  brought  together,  mastered  by  Ro- 
man armies,  controlled  by  Roman  laws,  bound  together  by 
great  Roman  roads.  Ages,  races,  peoples,  became  ac- 
quainted within  the  Empire.  The  world  was  Romanized 
on  its  political  side  and  Platonized  on  its  intellectual  side. 
This  is  a  significant  fact.  We  shall  see  more  of  its  signifi- 
cance later.  Now  we  must  turn  back  for  the  purpose  of 
summing  up  the  general  educational  situation  as  it  existed 
in  the  Greco-Roman  Empire  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Christian  Era,  while  the  Christian  movement  was  still 
merely  a  local  disturbance  in  a  remote  corner  of  a  distant 
province.  We  must  see  the  nature  of  the  Greco-Roman  or- 
ganization more  clearly,  in  order  that  we  may  appreciate 
more  fully  the  next  great  stage  in  the  development  of  the 
argument. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  EDUCATIONAL   SITUATION   IN   THE   GRECO-ROMAN   EMPIRE 

WE  have  already  seen  how  the  social  world  of  the  Greco- 
Roman  Empire  had  become  compacted  of  streams  from 
many  lands — peoples,  customs,  cultures,  religions,  morali- 
ties, and  philosophies.  We  have  seen  how  Greek  thought, 
after  Socrates,  had  become  Platonized  until  it  became  ab- 
solute, systematized,  intellectualistic,  lacking  in  humanity, 
careless  of  personal  impulses,  individual  energies,  feelings 
and  emotions.  In  this  sense  Plato  and  the  Platonic  influ- 
ence represent  a  return  toward  the  old  f olkway  life,  with 
the  same  unintelligent  carelessness  of  all  that  is  personally 
worth  while  to  the  individual.  We  have  seen,  too,  how  the 
Roman  Empire  provides  an  admirable  political  background 
for  this  absolutism  of  thought,  how  the  Roman  army  pro- 
vides the  ideal  tool  for  its  "inculcation."  We  have  seen 
how  that  fine  originality  of  mind  and  spirit  in  Socrates,  in 
Plato,  and  in  Aristotle,  became  gradually  organized  into 
"knowledge,"  written  down  in  the  authorized  texts  and  pre- 
sented with  authority  in  the  schools.  "Live  from  within" 
becomes  "Live  according  to  the  books,"  "Know  thyself" 
becomes  "Know  the  books,"  and  the  free  spirit  of  Socrates 
is  lost  in  the  machinery  of  political  and  intellectual  life. 

We  have  seen,  too,  how  under  the  surface  of  this  over- 
intellectual  but  under-intelligent  life  there  grew  up  in 
Alexandria,  and  eventually  all  over  the  Empire,  a  wild 
orgy  of  religious  cults,  "mysteries,"  theologies,  and  prac- 
tices which  offered  some  human,  even  though  degrading, 

114 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  WORLD  EMPIRE      115 

outlet  from  the  sterilities  of  this  absolute  existence  of  the 
social  order.  This  growth  of  cults  and  the  like  had  largely 
come  about  through  the  meeting  of  the  East  and  the 
West,  those  two  diverse  civilizations  which  had  jarred  at 
Marathon,  which  had  overflowed  each  other  in  the  Alex- 
andrian conquests,  which  had  clashed  in  the  West  in  the 
Punic  Wars,  and  which  had  gradually  interpenetrated 
until,  in  Rome  at  least  and  perhaps  in  many  other  places, 
all  the  cults  of  the  world  were  known  and  good  naturedly 
tolerated  as  mostly  harmless.  The  Greek  philosopher  had 
become  an  absolutist  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of 
eternal  truth  or  denying  the  existence  of  eternal  truth,  as 
struck  his  personal  fancy.  In  either  case  he  was  useless 
to  humanity.  The  Roman  citizen  had  become  politically 
"absolute."  His  rights  and  duties  were  not  personal  to 
him ;  they  were  the  inherited  characteristics  of  his  position 
as  citizen. 

The  common  mass  of  mankind  was,  of  course,  brutalized 
under  this  system.  Lacking  all  human  rights,  except  the 
right  to  work,  robbed  by  tax-gatherers,  overridden  by  the 
soldiery,  they  took  refuge  in  "religion,"  or  they  clung  to 
the  refuge  of  old  religious  customs  and  waited  in  "the 
illusions  of  hope."  They  became  all  too  easily  the  servile 
classes  of  the  Middle  Ages  and,  "bowed  with  the  weight 
of  centuries, ' '  one  of  the  tremendous  problems  of  the  whole 
modern  period,  as  we  shall  see. 

One  Additional  Element. — Certain  of  these  diverse  social 
and  educational  elements  had  intrinsic  merit  sufficient  to 
compel  the  world  to  conserve  and  use  them  in  the  building 
of  the  future  civilization.  In  addition  to  the  Greek  intel- 
lectualism  and  the  Roman  practicalism,  mention  must  be 
made  of  the  Hebrew  contribution  to  the  constructive  forces 
that  were  making  the  world.  We  have  already  seen  the 
development  of  this  Hebrew  element  through  its  primitive 


116  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

folkways  up  into  its  Oriental  level  of  complete  submersion 
in  the  written  Law.  The  literalisms  and  moralisms  of  the 
Pharisee  have  passed  into  a  term  of  reproach.  But  they 
are  of  one  flesh  with  the  intellectualisms  of  the  Greek  and 
the  practicalisms  of  the  Roman.  This  moralism  had  become 
completely  institutionalized,  with  its  penalties  and  punish- 
ments. It  was  "peculiar";  no  other  people  of  the  Greco- 
Roman  world  held  so  tenaciously  to  their  fixed  system. 
And  it  was  "natural";  it  has  outlived  all  changes  of  place 
and  time.  But  it  was  mechanical,  unpersonal,  careless  of 
the  finer  human  goods.  "You  tithe  your  mint,  your  anise, 
and  your  cummin,  but  you  neglect  the  weightier  matters  of 
the  Law :  Justice,  Mercy,  and  Truth. ' ' 

The  Coalescence  of  These  Characteristics. — The  Hebrew 
element  was,  it  is  true,  not  much  felt  in  the  Roman  world  at 
large;  it  was  local.  But  wherever  it  was  felt  it  tended  to 
the  production  of  the  same  impersonal  and  absolute  re- 
sults as  were  produced  by  the  intellectualism  of  Greek  phil- 
osophy and  the  practicalism  of  Roman  militaristic  politics. 
But  whether  dominated  by  all  these  elements — intellectual- 
ism,  practicalism,  legalism — in  combination  or  singly,  hu- 
man life  in  the  last  century  B.C.  and  in  the  first  century 
A.D.  became  overwhelmingly  mechanical,  juiceless,  non- 
human.  It  was  over-intellectualized,  over-legalized,  over- 
practicalized,  over-civilized.  The  common  individual  was  a 
useful  machine  and  supposed  to  be  without  feeling  or  in- 
telligence. Social  interests  had  no  intelligence  in  them; 
they  represented  only  the  mechanics  of  the  system.  The 
common  work  of  the  world  was  servile,  untouched  by  any 
real  intelligence.  Intellectual  interests  had  no  real  con- 
nection with  the  social  world.  Education  stifled  feeling, 
impulse,  and  emotion,  and  life  itself  lost  all  its  genuine 
significance.  The  whole  life  of  man  comes  to  a  routine. 
The  race  has  lost  its  way;  it  has  no  way,  no  path  ahead. 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  WORLD  EMPIRE      117 

It  has  come  to  the  end,  to  absolute  system,  to  completion 
of  all  its  tasks,  to  certainty  and  hence  to  hopelessness! 

Certain  Great  Values  in  this  Fixed  Social  Order. — De- 
spite all  that  has  been  said,  there  were,  of  course,  certain 
fundamental  values  in  this  world-empire  which  the  world 
will  not  willingly  see  pass  away.  Obedience  to  the  law  is 
of  the  essence  of  character;  discipline  of  the  intellect  is  of 
the  essence  of  education;  discipline  of  the  heart  is  of  the 
essence  of  personal  integrity.  These  great  teachings  from 
Rome,  Greece,  and  Judea  are  permanent  gains.  Only,  may 
they  not  be  presented  in  ways  that  would  make  them  quite 
as  effective,  without  at  the  same  time  making  them  so  un- 
lovely, so  objectionable?  It  was  a  grievous  fault  of  the 
Greek  intellectual  life  that  it  possessed  no  power  after 
Socrates  of  making,  or  making  place  for,  a  new  and  finer 
social  order.  "With  its  lack  of  the  idea  of  progress,  it 
possessed  no  possibility  of  a  thoroughgoing  reconstruction, 
possessed  no  future  and  no  hope. " x  It  was  a  grievous 
fault  of  the  Roman  practical  life  that  it  had  no  imagination 
with  which  to  grasp  the  variety  and  beauty  of  the  life  that 
it  so  relentlessly  trampled  under  foot.  Rome  should  con- 
quer and  save  the  world!  But  from  what?  From  the 
very  things,  though  Rome  never  knew  it,  that  made  life  at 
all  worth  while !  It  was  the  grievous  fault  of  the  pharisa- 
ism  of  the  Hebrews  that  it  could  live  in  the  midst  of  a  world 
of  serene  great  beauties,  the  spiritual  realities  of  the  great 
prophets  of  its  own  past,  and  still  could  spend  its  ener- 
gies and  time  in  "straining  at  gnats."  The  mighty  moral 
meanings  of  life  had  been  sighted  by  the  Greeks  and  the 
Hebrew  prophets.  Socrates  had  once  lived,  as  had  also 
Amos  and  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah;  there  had  even  once  been 
a  Republic,  with  its  "tribunes  of  the  people"  in  Rome. 
But  liberty,  freedom,  intelligence,  democracy,  a  greatly  cre-< 

lEucken:    "Problem  of  Human  Life,"  p.   126. 


118  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ative  vision  of  the  future — these  are  elusive  and  cannot  be 
kept  except  by  ' '  eternal  vigilance. ' '  We  do  not  know  this 
even  yet.  Hence  we  should  not  greatly  wonder  that  in 
that  distant  age,  with  confusion  behind  it,  with  the  tramp 
of  mighty  armies  sounding  through  it,  and  with  the  rumors 
of  still  other  confusions  to  come  out  of  the  wilderness  of 
the  North,  men  should  cling  to  the  machinery  of  life  and 
let  the  spirit  go ! 

It  was  a  world  in  which  education  could  merely  follow 
the  conventional  round,  the  academic  routine,  the  endless 
repetition  of  sentences  without  outlook  of  any  kind.  Chil- 
dren must  be  educated,  just  as  the  barbarian  must  be  civ- 
ilized. Hence  in  Greek  lyceum,  or  Roman  grammaticus, 
or  Hebrew  synagogue  the  child  heard  only:  "Learn  your 
lessons;  repeat  your  sentences;  practice  your  rules." 
What  wonder  that  the  tired  Roman  school-boy  should  draw, 
for  the  liberation  of  his  weary  mind,  the  picture  of  the  ass 
working  at  the  mill,  inscribing  under  his  drawing  the  brief 
legend:  "Labor  on,  little  ass,  as  I  have  labored,  and  may 
it  profit  you  as  much ' ' ! 

What  wonder  that  there  grew  up  within  that  juiceless 
world  the  feeling  that  the  significance  of  the  world  and  of 
life  had  been  lost;  that  the  absolute  system  of  the  world, 
by  means  of  which  man  was  to  have  been  saved,  but  added 
in  some  mysterious  but  certain  way  to  the  world's  confu- 
sion; that  the  certainties  of  the  age  were  a  ghastly  jest; 
that  on  this  plain  and  certain  way  the  race  had  yet  wan- 
dered from  the  true  way;  that  in  the  full  blaze  of  this 
noonday  literalism  humanity  was  lost! 

Says  a  modern  writer: 

"The  whole  age  was  filled  with  a  sense  of  spiritual  unrest. 
The  rapidly  increasing  corruption  of  the  ruling  class,  the  glar- 
ing contrasts  of  luxury  and  misery,  the  insecurity  of  life  and 
property,  the  sense  of  world.-weariness  which  marked  the  passing 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  WORLD  EMPIRE      119 

away  of  moral  enthusiasms,  all  brought  home  to  men  the  feel- 
ing that  the  world  was  growing  old,  and  that  some  catastrophe 
was  impending.  The  new  sense  of  sin  and  evil  was  fast  out- 
growing the  ability  of  the  (most  sincere  thinkers)  to  cope  with 
it.  The  ideal  of  virtue  was  felt  by  bitter  experience  to  be  beyond 
the  reach  of  unaided  human  effort;  some  higher  power  must 
intervene  to  save  us,  if  we  are  to  reach  salvation." 1 

A  writer  of  the  period  describes  the  corruptions  of  the 
age,  and  suggests  that  the  mind  of  the  age  had  become 
"reprobate,"  "being  filled  with  all  unrighteousness,  for- 
nication, wickedness,  covetousness,  maliciousness;  full  of 
envy,  murder,  dissension,  deceit,  malignity;  whisperers, 
backbiters,  haters  of  God,  despiteful,  proud,  boastful,  in- 
ventors of  evil  things,  disobedient  to  parents,  without  un- 
derstanding, covenant  breakers,  without  natural  affection, 
implacable,  unmerciful ;  who  knowing  .  .  .  that  they  which 
commit  such  things  are  worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the 
same,  but  have  pleasure  in  them  that  do  them. ' ' 2 

All  this  seems  the  inevitable  result  of  an  over-intellectual, 
over-mechanical  organization  of  society.  The  feelings  had 
been  eliminated  from  the  world ;  emotions  were  out  of  date. 
Yet  the  search  for  a  "salvation"  that  could  be  approved 
by  the  intellect  had  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  all  that 
was  finest  in  the  older  social  orders.  There  must  be  some 
other  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  life,  or  else  life  is 
lost  in  unspeakable  degradation  and  the  race  is  lost  in  the 
toils  of  its  own  devising:  it  has  put  a  part  of  life  for  the 
whole  of  life  and  is  sunken  in  a  beastly  materialism. 
Whence  shall  the  possibility  of  escape,  or  salvation,  come? 
That  shall  engage  us  in  the  next  chapter. 

1  Rogers,  "Student's  History  of  Philosophy,"  pp.  171-3. 

2  Romans,  Ch.  I,  w.  28-32. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  PROTEST  OP  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY  AGAINST  THE  CHAR- 
ACTERISTICS OF   GRECO-ROMAN-HEBREW   CIVILIZATION 

The  Historic  Roots  of  the  New  Movement. — A  man 

named  Socrates  had  once  lived  in  Athens,  teaching :  ' '  Men 
of  Athens,  I  would  persuade  you,  old  and  young  alike,  not 
to  take  thought  for  your  persons  or  your  properties,  but 
first  and  chiefly  to  care  about  the  greatest  improvement  of 
your  souls.  I  tell  you  that  virtue  is  not  given  by  money, 
but  that  from  virtue  come  money  and  every  other  good  of 
man,  public  as  well  as  private."  1 

A  man  named  Amos  had  once  lived  in  Judea,  teaching: 
"Thus  saith  Jehovah,  'I  hate,  I  despise  your  feasts,  your 
conventional  assemblies,  your  official  music;  but  I  would 
that  justice  might  roll  down  as  the  waters  and  righteous- 
ness as  a  mighty  stream. '  "  2 

And  even  in  Eome  a  man  named  Tiberius  Gracchus  had 
once  lived  to  say:  "The  wild  beasts  of  Italy  have  their 
dens,  but  the  brave  men  who  spill  their  blood  for  her  are 
without  homes  or  settled  habitations.  Their  generals  do 
but  mock  them  when  they  exhort  their  men  to  fight  for  their 
sepulchers  and  the  gods  of  their  hearths ;  for,  among  such 
numbers  there  is  perhaps  not  one  who  has  an  ancestral 
altar.  The  private  soldiers  fight  and  die  to  advance  the 
luxury  of  the  great,  and  they  are  called  masters  of  the 
world  without  having  a  sod  to  call  their  own. ' ' 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  not  always  in  Greece  and  Judea, 

1  Plato's,  "The  Apology." 

2  Amos,  3,  ii-iv. 

120 


PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY      121 

nor  even  in  Rome,  had  the  heartless  voice  of  a  mechanical 
eivilization  been  dominant.  Socrates  had,  indeed,  attested 
his  sincerity  with  his  death;  Amos  had  defied  the  authori- 
ties to  molest  him ;  Gracchus  had  dared  the  Senate  to  do  its 
worst,  and  taken  the  penalty.  But  these  incidents  prove 
that  there  is  something  in  humanity  that  is  not  accounted 
for  in  an  age  of  intellectualisms,  practicalisms,  legalisms, 
and  militarisms.  Deep  under  the  surface  of  such  an  age 
energies  are  buried  that  will  yet  come  to  light  and  life.  A 
mechanical  age  must  always  lose  its  way,  its  soul,  its  very 
self;  but  the  salvation  that  it  needs  will  come,  and  it  will 
come,  it  must  come,  from  within.  So  primitive  Christian- 
ity appeared. 

The  Nature  of  Primitive  Christianity. — The  Christian 
movement  in  its  primitive  aspects  represents  a  distinct  re- 
surgence of  life  from  its  natural  depths  and  sources,  what- 
ever those  sources  may  be.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  a  genu- 
ine impulse — life,  energy,  feeling,  emotion,  purpose  well- 
ing up  from  within,  out  of  the  individual,  out  of  Man,  out 
of  the  universe,  overflowing  the  conventional  channels  of 
life  and  daring  to  live  in  ways  that  are  not  permitted  by  a 
machine-made  age  or  civilization. 

It  is  the  rediscovery  of  the  individual,  lost  and  forgotten 
since  Socrates  in  Athens,  since  Jeremiah  in  Judea,  since 
the  Gracchi  in  Rome.  It  is  the  restatement  of  an  ancient 
hope  that  life  is  spirit,  not  flesh,  soul,  not  machine,  feeling 
and  emotion,  not  bare  intellect.  It  is  the  denial  of  the 
finality  of  a  fixed  and  mechanical  social  order.  It  is  the 
hope  of  a  social  order  based  on  the  inner  and  spiritual  life 
and  needs  of  society,  an  order  in  which  the  individual  may 
find  his  own  personal  freedom  as  a  member  of  a  social  fel- 
lowship. It  gives  the  direct  challenge  to  all  forms  of  in- 
tellectualisms, practicalisms,  legalisms,  literalisms,  and  mil- 
itarisms. Plato  had  said,  "The  world  is  made  of  ideas"; 


122  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Jesus  said,  "Build  your  world  out  of  love  and  service  and 
sympathy."  Roman  militarism  had  said,  "Buttress  your 
liberties  with  forts,  arsenals,  and  legions  of  soldiers"; 
Jesus  said,  "The  truth  alone  can  make  you  free."  The 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  had  said,  "Cursed  is  the  man  that 
knows  not  the  Law ' ' ;  Jesus  said,  ' '  Love  is  the  fulfillment  of 
all  law."  In  place  of  the  philosopher,  the  moralist,  or  the 
soldier,  Jesus  sets  up  a  little  child  and  says,  "Of  such  is 
the  real  social  order  of  the  future  to  be  made."  In  all 
these  things  the  founder  of  this  movement  seems  to  be 
saying:  "Man  is  a  part  of  the  creative  energy  of  the 
universe ;  he  shall  create  his  own  moral  order,  his  own  spir- 
itual universe  in  which  to  live.  Local  legalisms,  barren 
civic  formalisms,  heartless  militarisms,  lifeless  intellectual- 
isms,  all  are  wrong  because  they  make  men  the  toys  of 
circumstances,  victims  of  their  own  environments,  slaves 
of  their  age,  or  of  some  dead  past.  But  man  is  to  master 
his  circumstances,  he  is  to  overcome  the  degradations  of  his 
environment,  he  is  to  remake  his  age,  he  is  to  outlive  the 
past." 

Three  Essential  Elements. — In  the  message  of  primitive 
Christianity  life  seems  to  be  made  up  of  three  main  ele- 
ments. First,  instead  of  its  being  dependent  upon  legal- 
istic systems  of  conduct,  formal  learning,  or  the  doctrines 
of  the  books,  life  is  to  be  spontaneous,  welling  up  out  of  the 
springs  of  existence  and  expressing  itself  in  love  and  serv- 
ice. Man  has  immediate  access  to  the  sources  of  inspira- 
tion ;  books  are  not  necessary  nor  are  special  classes  of  men, 
though  these  may  be  of  service  in  their  proper  relation- 
ships. 

Second,  men  need  truth.  Truth  is  not  a  final  thing,  a 
complete  system,  closed  and  dogmatic.  Truth  is  something 
to  be  everlastingly  searched  after,  and  life  is  in  the  activity 
of  this  search  for  the  truth,  not  in  the  mere  possession  of 


PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY      123 

gomething  found,  some  absolute  value  to  be  attained  once 
for  all. 

Third,  life  moves  onward,  forward,  not  by  the  spinning 
of  long  and  subtle  arguments,  but  by  the  simple  and  benef- 
icent processes  of  growth  from  within.  "The  kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  at  first  is 
the  least  of  all  seeds;  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  becomes  a 
mighty  tree,  filling  the  earth."  The  processes  of  growth 
can  be  trusted;  these  are  more  reliable  for  progress  than 
institutions  which  are  usually  but  remnants  of  old  folk- 
ways. 

On  the  psychological  side  primitive  Christianity  seems  to 
be  rooted  deep  in  the  primitive  feelings,  in  the  impulses 
and  sympathies.  It  does  not  deny  the  intellectual.  In- 
deed, a  close  examination  will  show  that  of  all  ancient  at- 
tempts to  get  at  the  real  meaning  of  life  Christianity  gives 
the  most  permanent  basis  for  a  doctrine  of  the  intellectual 
life  which  will  satisfy  the  psychology  of  our  own  times.  It 
demands  that  the  intellect  shall  be  the  servant  of  the  more 
fundamental  aspects  of  life,  and  that  books  and  all  other 
products  of  the  intellectual  life  shall  consent  to  minister  to 
life,  not  attempt  to  dominate  and  control  it. 

On  the  social  side  Christianity  is  rooted  deep  in  the  be- 
lief advanced  by  Socrates  that  man  is  of  the  nature  of  the 
universe,  not  a  fallen  angel  or  a  stranger  in  an  evil  world ; 
that  the  universal  good  is  within  him,  if  it  can  have  the 
chance  it  needs  for  growth;  that  the  ultimate  good  of 
society  is  to  be  found  in  the  socialized  responsibility  of  the 
individual  and  in  the  continuous  contribution  of  such  in- 
dividuals to  the  world's  needs,  this  being  of  course  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  doctrine  of  the  Empire,  that  the  final 
good  of  society  is  found  in  the  fixed  systems,  doctrines, 
creeds,  and  institutions  that  have  been  developed  to  date 
and  which  are  used  as  instruments  for  measuring  the  in- 


124  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

dividual,  for  compelling  his  conformity  and  making  him 
an  acceptable  fraction  of  a  social  whole.  According  to  this 
more  human  outlook  of  primitive  Christianity,  individuals 
need  to  be  helped  to  grow,  not  out  of  their  impulses  but  by 
means  of  them,  into  lives  of  love  and  service  and  sympa- 
thy and  the  broadest  humanity;  and  not  apart  from  the 
world  in  special  exercises  and  experiences,  but  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  world 's  tasks  and  experiences. 

Primitive  Christianity  and  Institutionalism. — The  doc- 
trine of  growth  is,  as  we  have  seen,  one  of  the  central  ele- 
ments of  this  new  movement.  We  have  encountered  this 
doctrine  before,  in  a  primitive  form,  in  Socrates;  we  shall 
encounter  it  again,  in  more  sophisticated  form,  in  the  mod- 
ern world.  Here  we  must  note  that  this  is  the  particular 
aspect  of  the  movement  that  comes  into  severest  conflict 
with  current  institutions.  Perhaps  the  clearest  way  of  ex- 
pressing this  conflict  is  by  saying  that  all  the  way  through 
the  teaching  of  primitive  Christianity  the  implication  is 
plain  that  there  is  quite  as  much  need  of  the  salvation  of 
institutions  as  of  the  salvation  of  individuals.  Institutions 
need  to  be  redeemed  from  their  stagnation,  their  decadence, 
their  assumptions  of  traditional  authority  to  dominate  and 
control  all  the  life  of  Man!  Institutions  are  necessary  to 
life.  Aristotle  had  caught  some  glimpse  of  this  and  re- 
flected it  in  his  saying  that  "only  in  the  state  does  the 
individual  achieve  independence  and  completeness  of  life"; 
individuals  must  be  saved  from  their  casual  and  fleeting 
impulses  and  helped  to  reach  the  substantial  and  permanent 
levels  of  living.  But  as  we  have  seen  in  earlier  sections  of 
this  study,  one  of  the  most  constant  tendencies  in  human 
nature  is  the  tendency  toward  habit  and  the  acceptance  of 
some  more  or  less  accidental  level  of  the  folkways  as  the 
final  reality  of  the  world.  The  Roman  Empire  was  but  a 
greatly  glorified  system  of  habit  which  demanded  certain 


PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY      125 

developments  of  the  individual  and  forbade  other  develop- 
ments; individuals  achieved  certain  freedoms  within  the 
Empire  and  were  denied  other  freedoms.  No  level  of  habit, 
that  is  to  say,  no  system  of  institutions  can  ever  assure 
ultimate  freedom.  The  lasting  good  of  life  is  not  found 
in  any  set  of  institutions,  in  any  system  of  folkways  or  any 
level  of  custom,  not  even  of  "civilized"  custom.  Nor  is  it 
found  in  the  opinions  of  the  "wise  men"  whose  lives  have 
become  organized  into  some  partial  world  of  habit.  No, 
the  lasting  good  of  the  world  is  a  promise  not  of  words,  but 
of  life  itself  in  its  endless  renewals ;  it  is  found  in  the  un- 
spoiled nature  of  the  little  child.  It  is  not  the  child  that  is 
the  promise ;  it  is  the  endless  renewal  of  unhabituated  life 
that  is  the  promise,  and  this  is  the  most  fundamental  criti- 
cism of  institutionalism  that  the  world  knows.  The  hope 
of  the  world  is  not  primarily  in  what  the  world  has  accu- 
mulated of  the  accomplishments  of  life ;  it  is  rather  in  what 
the  world  has  yet  to  learn  from  the  very  nature  of  life 
itself  as  that  is  revealed  in  untutored  measure  in  the  end- 
lessly renewing  generations.  Not  institutions,  but  life  it- 
self, is  the  hope  of  the  world. 

The  Redemption  of  Civilization. — We  have  seen  in  an 
earlier  section  that  the  institutionalism  of  many  kinds  in 
the  Empire  had  tended  to  burden  the  world  with  the  feeling 
that  the  race  had  lost  its  way  and  had  fallen  into  the 
clutches  of  a  mechanical  social  system  which  could  boast  of 
its  intellectual  life  on  the  one  hand,  while  it  ignored  its 
moral  degeneration  on  the  other.  Contemporary  religious 
writers  describe  this  moral  break  in  the  unity  of  human 
life.  We  have  noted  one  such  description  in  a  previous 
section.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  universe  itself  seemed  to 
have  been  riven  into  two  rival  realms,  as  in  the  Persian 
religious  doctrines, — the  realm  of  goodness,  or  light,  and 
the  realm  of  evil,  or  darkness.  The  one  realm  claimed  to 


126  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

be  in  possession  of  reason,  intelligence,  and  to  represent  the 
organized  system  of  society  which  Plato  had  described  in 
such  glowing  terms;  the  other  was  the  world  of  unreason, 
of  evil  and  misery,  that  " outer  darkness"  from  which 
Greek  intellect  had  striven  to  release  the  race.  These  two 
worlds  stood  over  against  each  other.  Civilization  claimed 
to  be  marching  with  the  former,  with  resounding  doctrines, 
stern  laws,  and  invincible  legions,  but  the  latter  seemed 
always  to  be  hanging  on  the  flanks  of  the  other.  Darkness 
seemed  always  about  to  swallow  up  the  light,  to  overwhelm 
the  forces  of  civilization  and  order.  The  defect  in  all  the 
ancient  civilizations  lay  in  their  limited  outlooks.  The 
ancient  peoples  never  escaped  from  their  primitive  folk- 
way  characteristics.  To  the  Jew,  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
was  "gentile";  to  the  Greek,  all  else  was  "barbarian."  It 
is  true  that  occasionally  there  appeared  for  a  moment  a 
particular  individual  who  rose  above  this  narrower  folkway 
acceptance  of  life.  A  Roman  poet  could  say,  "Nothing 
human  lies  outside  my  interest, ' '  but  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity seems  to  have  been  the  first  who  actually  attempted 
to  live  that  doctrine,  and  there  is  some  doubt  as  to  whether 
he  always  maintained  that  ideal.  He  calls  himself  not  the 
Son  of  Abraham,  but  the  ' '  Son  of  Man " ;  he  claimed  to  be 
not  a  Jew,  but  a  human  being.  Yet  it  is  reported  of  him 
that  he  once  said,  "My  mission  is  to  none  but  the  House  of 
Israel."  That  may  have  been  said  for  the  purpose  of 
disarming  the  suspicions  of  the  Jews,  however.  At  any 
rate,  there  was  within  his  doctrines  and  his  life  the  possibil- 
ity of  a  genuine  humanity,  as  there  never  was  in  the  Greek 
thought  or  in  the  Roman  social  order.  Hence  there  is  more 
hope  for  humanity  in  the  Christian  doctrine  than  in  the 
Greek.  In  fact,  the  mighty  civilization  developed  by 
Greek  reason  into  an  exclusive  social  order  must  be  saved, 
reconstituted,  humanized  by  the  sympathies  and  love  that 


PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY      127 

lie  at  the  heart  of  the  Christian  movement,  if  human  his- 
tory is  to  have  any  real  future.  Let  us  note  how  this  is  to 
be  done. 

Greek  thought  conceived  a  moral  order  of  civilization 
that  should  be  perfect,  finished,  complete;  after  Socrates, 
Greek  thinking  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  the  un- 
finished, the  incomplete.  The  moral  and  educational  prob- 
lem for  the  Greek,  therefore,  consisted  in  realizing  this 
complete  moral  environment  and  in  bringing  men  into 
harmonious  relationships  with  it,  so  that  their  own  lives 
should  become  as  complete.  Hence  the  task  of  "civiliza- 
tion" among  the  Greeks  was,  as  we  have  already  seen,  pri- 
marily an  intellectual  one.  Knowledge  was  what  man 
needed  to  make  him  as  complete  as  the  moral  order  that 
was  round  about  him.  But  this  doctrine  was  based  on  the 
hypothesis  that  there  is  a  fully  developed  and  final  moral 
order  in  the  universe  to  which  men  may  conform,  to  which 
they  must  conform  if  their  lives  are  to  be  saved  from  in- 
completeness, lawlessness,  and  lower  impulses. 

Such  a  doctrine  seems  very  plausible  and  even  beautiful. 
But  if  we  are  to  judge  of  the  truth  of  an  hypothesis  by  its 
workings  in  actual  experience,  this  doctrine  falls  far  short 
of  the  desirable.  Such  a  fully  developed  moral  order  may 
exist,  but  if  so,  it  is  not  even  yet  known  to  humanity ;  and  if 
any  moral  order  presents  itself  to  men  as  the  fully  devel- 
oped order  of  the  universe,  it  can  be  assumed  that  it  is  not 
genuine.  It  is  some  old  folkway  system,  some  non-intelli- 
gent organization  of  customs  of  even  more  primitive  life 
erecting  itself  into  a  final  moral  system  and  presenting 
itself  as  having  absolute  moral  authority.  But  such  a  con- 
ception of  life  prevents  a  real  civilization,  for  it  turns 
actual  intelligence  backward  into  a  formal  obedience,  a 
conformity  to  old  fixed  conditions.  It  is  the  most  funda- 
mental merit  of  the  Christian  doctrine  that  it  gives  to  life 


128  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

a  forward  look  toward  unrealized  and,  indeed,  toward  as 
yet  unseen  goals;  it  suggests  that  the  task  of  life  is  not 
merely  human  conformity  to  a  rigid  system.  Such  con- 
formity, following  the  letter  of  the  law,  kills  the  spirit  of 
man.  The  task  of  life  is  the  development  of  new  and  no- 
bler social  orders,  the  creation  of  new  worlds  of  moral  and 
spiritual  values.  Man  is  to  be  not  merely  conformative ; 
he  is  to  be  creative;  he  is  to  share  in  the  work  of  making 
the  nobler  worlds.  And  this  requires  something  more 
fundamental  than  knowledge.  It  requires,  first  of  all,  a 
new  heart!  It  requires  that  the  individual  shall  find  for 
his  life  a  new  direction.  It  demands  and  secures  the  re- 
lease of  new  energies.  In  short,  it  gives  to  the  soul  of 
man  a  new  inner  life,  and  it  converts  the  passive  negations 
of  the  Greek  conception  of  life  into  active  and  positive  pur- 
poses, regenerating  and  exercising  all  the  latent  energies  of 
the  being.  It  is  a  new  life  surging  up  through  the  formal 
and  artificial  boundaries  of  the  old  conventional  life  and 
in  its  rich  exuberance  overturning  old  standards  and  mo- 
tives, going  forth  to  fight  with  all  the  "powers  of  dark- 
ness" for  the  mastery  of  the  world,  ready  to  die  for  the  joy 
of  the  faith  that  is  revealed  in  this  new  experience. 

But  in  the  second  place,  if  man  is  to  be  creative  in  the 
moral  world,  he  must  learn  a  new  use  of  knowledge  and  of 
his  intelligence.  Knowledge  is  not  to  bind  him ;  it  is  to  set 
him  free.  His  intelligence  is  not  for  the  purpose  of  build- 
ing strong  walls  about  him ;  it  is  to  help  him  apply  knowl- 
edge in  the  working  out  of  the  problems  of  life;  it  is  to 
serve  him  in  developing  the  successive  stages  of  his  creative 
progress  toward  freedom.  True,  not  all  of  this  was  ex- 
plicit in  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  But  it  was  all  im- 
plicit therein,  and  the  logic  of  the  Christian  movement 
pointed  in  just  such  direction  and  made  the  movement  most 
dangerous  to  the  established  social  and  intellectual  order. 


PROTEST  OF  PRIMITIVE  CHRISTIANITY      129 

Hence  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  a  release  of 
energy  should  be  regarded  with  suspicion  by  all  upholders 
of  old  social  conditions  whose  privileges  and  honors  were 
threatened  by  any  essential  social  change.  Especially  is  it 
easy  to  see  why  efforts  were  made  to  fight  the  new  move- 
ment, to  destroy  it,  to  stamp  it  out.  Its  founder  was  put 
to  death,  its  exponents  persecuted,  imprisoned,  and  killed. 
Yet  all  such  efforts  failed. 

There  remained,  therefore,  but  one  thing  to  do:  these 
destructive,  revolutionary  energies  must  be  drained  off 
into  formal  and  harmless  channels  and  conventionalized 
into  meaninglessness.  Its  living  energies  must  be  turned 
into  barren  theologisms,  into  dreary  intellectualisms  which 
could  be  made  to  take  the  place  of  and  to  subdue  the  old- 
time  passionate  energies  of  the  movement.  For  "civiliza- 
tion must  be  saved"  from  this  new  destructive  movement. 
"It  interferes  with  our  profits"  was  the  reason  given  by 
the  silversmiths  of  Ephesus  for  their  determination  to  root 
it  out.1 

The  methods  used  in  "saving  civilization"  from  the  full 
influence  of  the  movement  will  be  set  forth  in  the  next 
section. 

iThe  Acts,  19. 


CHAPTER  XV 

CHRISTIANITY   BECOMES   HARMONIZED   TO    THE  ABSOLUTE 
EMPIRE 

WE  have  seen  the  sort  of  world  into  which  the  protest 
of  primitive  Christianity  came.  Politically  organized  and 
controlled  from  Rome,  intellectually  dominated  by  the  ab- 
solute metaphysics  and  the  seemingly  invincible  logic  of 
Greece,  that  world  loomed  ever  larger  through  the  cen- 
turies as  a  gigantic  civilization-machine  before  which  noth- 
ing weak  could  long  endure.  "A  voice  crying  in  the  wil- 
derness," how  long  should  primitive  Christianity  be  heard 
above  the  tumult  and  the  shouting  of  the  world?  "A  reed 
shaken  by  the  wind,"  how  long  could  it  stand  before  the 
"progress  of  civilization"? 

Forces  that  Compel  Uniformity. — The  message  and 
spirit  of  primitive  Christianity  were  so  profoundly  revolu- 
tionary that  the  authorities  of  the  age  were  compelled  to 
do  one  of  two  things:  they  must  either  confess  civilization 
in  the  wrong  and  submit  to  the  leadership  of  this  ''de- 
spised Nazarene, ' '  or  they  must  put  the  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment into  postions  where  their  influence  could  be  safely 
controlled.  Already  the  founder  of  the  movement  had  met 
the  fate  of  Socrates  in  Athens.  But  followers  became  too 
numerous  to  be  dealt  with  in  this  summary  manner,  though 
great  efforts  were  made  in  this  direction.  Of  course  insti- 
tutions like  the  state  may  not  willingly  and  freely  declare 
themselves  in  the  wrong.  Hence  but  one  course  was  open. 
The  life  and  message  of  primitive  Christianity  had  to  be 
reckoned  with.  Here  was  a  moral  ideal  of  singular  beauty 

130 


CHRISTIANITY  BECOMES  ABSOLUTE       131 

and  purity,  a  type  of  life  that  made  a  wonderful  appeal 
to  a  weary  world.  There  was  a  real  danger  that  this  ideal 
might  conquer  the  mighty  fortress  of  civilization  by  the 
slow  processes  of  individual  conversion.  Such  fatal  conse- 
quences must  be  guarded  against;  primitive  Christianity 
must  be  moralized,  systematized,  intellectualized,  institu- 
tionalized. It  must  be  made  to  fit  into  the  absolute  sys- 
tem of  the  Empire;  it  must  become  subjected  to  Greek 
logical  forms  and  to  Roman  political  control.  In  this  way 
alone  could  the  dangers  implicit  in  it  be  securely  avoided. 

The  task  was  not  difficult.  Ideals  must  be  kept  pure; 
hence  they  must  be  stated  in  pure  and  final  forms.  Moral 
purposes  must  be  protected  from  the  contaminations  of  the 
world;  hence  there  must  be  definite  standards  of  conduct. 
Thinking  must  end  in  truth;  hence  there  must  be  definite 
standards  of  "straight  thinking,"  or  orthodoxy.  Hence, 
too,  there  must  be  authorized  bodies  of  men  who  shall 
determine  the  purity  of  ideals,  the  standards  of 
conduct,  the  tests  of  orthodoxy.  All  these  things 
seem  perfectly  legitimate.  But  it  is  the  most  diffi- 
cult of  matters  to  determine  when  ideals,  conduct,  and 
thinking  pass  over  from  being  the  actual  expression  of  an 
inner  spirit  and  become  merely  mechanical  conformity  to 
external  standards,  forms,  and  rules.  We  shall  have  oc- 
casion to  note  this  fact  again  and  again.  One  age  lives 
out  of  the  seemingly  boundless  resources  of  its  moral  aspira- 
tions ;  this  is  life,  indeed.  But  in  its  natural  desire  to  make 
sure  that  the  next  age  shall  enjoy  the  same  abundant  life, 
it  presses  down  upon  that  rising  age  standards  of  living, 
feeling,  and  thinking  which  come  as  purely  external  regu- 
lations to  the  younger  age;  and  the  older  generations  have 
never  been  able  to  understand  the  "rebelliousness"  of  the 
younger,  or  to  see  that  what  is  "life"  in  one  generation 
may  be  nothing  but  machinery  in  the  next. 


132  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

At  any  rate,  and  without  going  too  far  into  the  mere 
details  of  the  matter,  the  Christian  life  gradually  became 
moralized  into  rather  definite  practices.  Kituals  and  cere- 
monials that  could  be  used  as  tests  of  membership  and  fel- 
lowship came  into  being,  creeds  were  gradually  agreed 
upon,  and  before  many  generations  had  passed,  i.e.,  early 
in  the  fourth  century,  all  these  matters  had  come  under 
the  control  and  the  sanction  of  the  political  authorities. 
Christianity  had  become  the  accepted  and  acknowledged 
religion  of  the  state.  From  this  time  forward,  with  slight 
reverses  now  and  then,  the  prestige  of  the  new  movement 
grew  rapidly,  and  its  primitive  moral  vigor  declined  in  a 
somewhat  similar  ratio. 

Greek  philosophy  supplied  the  intellectual  framework  for 
the  creeds  and  theologies  that  made  it  possible  for  the  sim- 
ple doctrines  of  early  Christianity  to  become  acceptable  as 
the  official  religion  of  the  world-empire.  To  be  sure,  this 
end  was  not  won  without  many  bitter  conflicts.  Greek 
learning  was  at  first  bitterly  denounced  by  Christian  lead- 
ers as  being  utterly  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  new  move- 
ment. But  little  by  little  it  became  apparent  that  Chris- 
tian beliefs  needed  systematic  organization  and  effective 
intellectual  control.  Now,  while  there  were  many  things 
in  Greek  thought  that  were  repugnant  to  the  moral  sense 
of  the  Christians,  even  the  simple-minded  followers  of  the 
movement  came  gradually  to  see  that  in  this  Greek  thought 
there  were  two  distinct  elements,  viz.,  its  content  element, 
and  its  logical  element,  its  facts  or  principles,  and  the  form 
in  which  those  facts  or  principles  were  stated  and  related. 
The  former,  or  ethical  element,  was  the  objectionable  ele- 
ment; the  latter,  or  logical  element,  could  be  separated 
from  the  former,  and  it  was  seen  that  this  logical  element 
partook  of  no  share  in  the  general  objection  to  Greek  think- 
ing. This  logical  element  was  just  the  framework  on 


CHRISTIANITY  BECOMES  ABSOLUTE       133 

which  Greek  ethical  notions  were  strung.  The  obvious 
question  arises :  Is  it  not  possible  to  strip  these  objection- 
able ethical  elements  off  the  framework  and  use  this  same 
logical  structure  in  the  organization  of  the  content  of 
Christian  emotion  and  belief?  Such  a  procedure  would 
serve  two  worthy  ends:  it  would  help  to  redeem  a  noble 
logic  from  ignoble  uses,  and  it  would  give  to  the  Christian 
elements  the  intellectual  stability  that  they  so  sadly  needed. 

Results  of  These  Processes. — Accordingly,  little  by  lit- 
tle this  new  life  lost  its  originality,  its  depth  of  emotion, 
its  primitive  assurances  of  living  and  growing  truth,  its 
fundamental  reliance  upon  the  processes  of  growth ;  it  sur- 
rendered, on  its  official  side,  to  the  forces  of  the  age.  And 
though,  deep  under  all  officialisms,  some  real  life  always  re- 
mains, primitive  Christianity  was  lost  to  the  world  for  a 
thousand  years.  Life  was  intellectualized  into  set  creeds, 
with  their  tests  and  penalties.  The  ideal  of  truth  as  a 
social  product,  gradually  developing  through  the  ages  in 
the  moral  strivings  of  the  race,  was  lost  once  again,  as  in 
Greece  of  old,  and  in  its  place  came  the  doctrine  of  a  final 
system  of  truth,  the  "faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints." 
Over  and  above  the  natural  world  of  moral  effort  appears 
the  "heavenly  world,"  the  abode  of  God  and  all  pure 
spirits,  the  hope  of  the  world-weary,  the  final  refuge  of  the 
oppressed,  the  means  of  escape  from  the  problems  of  life. 

Beyond  these  developments  we  must  note  the  growth  of 
certain  general  philosophies  of  life  whose  purpose  was  to 
bring  all  the  past  cultures  of  the  world,  including  Chris- 
tianity, into  one  general  harmony,  with,  of  course,  a  Chris- 
tian bias.  Neoplatonism  is  the  first  of  these  attempts. 
But  the  problem  is  the  task  of  the  next  thousand  years, 
the  task  of  the  philosophers  of  the  church — Augustine,  the 
Scholastics,  and  finally  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  master  of 
them  all.  The  Platonic  conception  of  an  absolute  system 


134 

underlies  all  these  efforts  and  dominates  their  final  out- 
come, though  Platonic  conceptions  are  not  quite  equal  to 
the  last  exacting  stage  in  the  task. 

Finally  we  must  see  that  there  was  gradually  growing 
up  alongside  all  these  efforts  a  great  ecclesiastical  organi- 
zation, the  church,  which  should  be  the  outward  and  insti- 
tutional embodiment  of  these  absolute  knowledges,  stand- 
ards, and  ideals,  the  judge  of  orthodoxy,  the  conservator  of 
standards  of  faith  and  practice,  the  eventual  master  of 
even  the  state  in  the  domination  of  the  world.  Its  struc- 
ture gradually  becomes  hierarchical;  it  finds  definite  com- 
pletion in  the  papacy,  when  its  domination  of  the  minds 
of  men  and  its  control  of  institutions  and  of  human  des- 
tinies become  absolute. 

In  some  such  manner  as  this  primitive  Christianity  came 
to  abdicate  its  original  social  mission  of  stimulating  the 
growth  of  the  native  impulses  of  goodness  in  the  world  of 
men,  and  it  set  up  instead  formal  standards  of  living  to 
which  men  must  adhere  before  they  could  claim  any  of  the 
benefits  promised  in  the  primitive  "good  news."  This 
tendency  was  in  evidence  before  the  end  of  the  first  cen- 
tury. Jesus  had  preached  a  gospel  of  human  salvation  in 
the  towns  and  cities  of  Galilee  and  even  in  Jerusalem.  His 
follower,  John,  despairing  of  earthly  cities  and  finding  no 
hope  for  the  race  in  human  endeavors,  pictured  the  hope 
of  the  world  as  residing  in  a  "holy  city,"  a  "new  Jeru- 
salem" not  to  be  built  by  men,  but  "coming  down  out  of 
heaven  from  God  made  ready  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her 
husband."  That  is  to  say,  the  world  was  to  be  saved,  but 
not  by  any  means  existing  upon  the  earth.  Still  later,  as 
conditions  in  the  Empire  became  less  secure,  and  especially 
as  fear  of  the  northern  barbarians  grew,  the  hope  of  any 
security  in  any  sort  of  a  city  of  the  earth  grew  dim.  To 
St.  Augustine  in  the  fifth  century  the  whole  hope  of  the 


CHRISTIANITY  BECOMES  ABSOLUTE       135 

future  passed  from  the  earth;  man's  secure  life  was  to  be 
found  only  in  an  eventual  "City  of  God"  far  from  the 
turmoils  of  this  world,  ''eternal  in  the  heavens."  This 
ideal  of  life  dominates  the  imagination  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
as  we  shall  see.  The  long  struggle  to  win  back  belief  iu 
the  reality  of  this  world  is  of  almost  wholly  modern  origin. 
But  its  tenuous  roots  are  to  be  found  even  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  And  one  of  those  roots  is  traceable  in  the  story 
of  the  rebuilding  of  cities  as  the  habitations  of  men.  Of 
this  we  shall  see  more  later. 

One  further  phase  of  the  story  remains  to  be  told.  The 
value  of  the  individual,  so  bravely  asserted  by  Jesus,  was 
forgotten  in  the  growth  of  religious  politics  and  the  ma- 
chinery of  officialdom.  Primitive  Christianity  had  seemed 
the  charter  of  liberties  of  the  individual  soul.  But  the 
church  became  the  official  religious  institution  of  the  Em- 
pire, with  an  army  at  hand  to  make  its  authority  sure. 
Under  the  mighty  sweep  of  the  imperial  army,  tribes  were 
"converted"  wholesale.  A  conquered  nation  might  be; 
driven  by  hundreds,  or  even  thousands,  through  a  river  for 
baptism,  and  thus  transformed  "in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye"  from  heathen  into  Christians.  The  church  was  thus 
inundated  with  the  ignorant,  who  did  not  understand  tne 
significance  of  the  movement.  Its  vital  meaning  for  the  in- 
dividual was  lost,  and  the  world-weary  individual  became 
the  victim  of  one  more  world-encompassing  machine. 
Church  and  state  joined  hands  to  keep  the  individual 
within  bounds,  here  and  hereafter.  Indeed,  the  church, 
delivering  ultimate  doctrines  to  men  through  its  official 
channels  from  God  himself,  becomes  the  final  arbiter  of 
human  happiness  and  hope  and  destiny.  Even  the  state  is 
subordinate  to  the  church,  as  the  left  hand  is  subordinate 
to  the  right. 

The  church,  or  at  least  primitive  Christianity,  began  as 


136  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

an  expression  of  an  inner  life  which  was  slowly  to  spread 
until,  like  the  tree  growing  from  the  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  its  branches  should  fill  the  whole  earth.  But  this 
inner  life  was  under  quick  necessity  of  relating  itself  to 
the  hard  logic  of  Greek  thought  and  the  iron  rigor  of  Ro- 
man imperialism.  The  conflict  was  short  and  decisive. 
That  inner  life  dissolved  in  forced  submission  to  these 
mighty  externalities.  And  all  that  remains  of  it  is  a  mem- 
ory that  seems  to  make  less  unendurable  the  progress  of 
that  religio-political  machine,  Medieval  civilization. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   IRRUPTION   OF   NORTHERN   BARBARISM    INTO    THIS    GRECO- 
ROMAN-CHRISTIAN   EMPIRE   PROM    THE   THIRD    TO 
THE   SIXTH    CENTURY 

THE  logic  of  experience  is  more  effective  than  the  logic 
of  obscure  ideals  or  the  logic  of  an  abstract  argument. 
What  primitive  Christianity  failed  to  accomplish  through 
its  ideals  and  its  simple  arguments  was  emphatically  ac- 
complished in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  by  the  shock 
of  barbarian  invasion  from  the  north.  ' '  The  Greco-Roman 
Empire  is  not  the  last  word  in  human  life,  in  social  organi- 
zation, in  political  control,  in  general  culture,  in  individual 
happiness;  there  are  possibilities  of  individual  and  social 
development  still  unrealized,  even  undreamed  by  Greek 
philosophy,  hidden  in  the  unexplored  future  of  humanity." 

This  barbarian  challenge  to  civilization  demonstrated 
even  more.  It  called  in  question,  distinctly,  the  finality  of 
the  processes  by  which  primitive  Christianity  had  itself 
become  harmonized  to  the  absolute  structure  and  purpose 
of  the  Empire.  To  be  sure,  that  question  was  not  to  be  an- 
swered until  a  full  thousand  years  had  passed;  but  it  was 
in  the  course  of  events  and  it  remained  within  the  current 
of  history,  appearing  above  the  surface  now  and  again, 
waiting  the  development  of  a  more  substantial  basis  of  ex- 
pression. But  when  the  thousand  years  had  passed  it 
broke  through  the  encompassing  shell,  the  accumulated 
folkways,  and  changed  the  current  of  the  world's  life. 

Nature  of  this  Barbarian  Protest. — The  Roman  Empire 
was  approaching  social  and  moral  exhaustion,  notwith- 

137 


138  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

standing  the  fact  that  the  Christian  element  had  been  ab- 
sorbed into  its  life  and  become  the  official  religion.  The 
causes  were  chiefly  economic  and  political,  the  accumula- 
tion of  decadent  tendencies  of  centuries.  Society  had  be- 
come quite  completely  stratified,  from  the  imperial  levels 
down  to  the  peasant  who  had  already  become  a  serf,  bound 
to  the  soil  where  he  labored  and  changing  masters  as  the 
land  he  tilled  changed  owners.  By  the  fourth  century  the 
condition  of  these  serfs  had  become  the  very  limit  of  mis- 
ery. They  must  pay  their  unfair  landlords  outrageous 
rents  and,  in  addition,  they  paid  heavy  taxes  to  the  Em- 
pire. In  the  reign  of  Diocletian  they  arose  in  bloody  re- 
volts against  the  upper  classes  in  Gaul.  The  Empire  was 
becoming  as  fixed  in  its  structure  as  an  Oriental  despotism. 
It  swarmed  with  tax-gatherers;  it  was  said  that  "they  who 
received  taxes  were  more  than  they  who  paid  them."  In 
short,  through  economic  and  political  unintelligence  the  old 
social  and  moral  fiber  of  the  Empire  was  destroyed.  Some, 
as  Rome,  had  no  further  contribution  to  make  to  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  contrast  between  the  virtues  of  the  barbarians  and 
the  weaknesses  of  the  Romans  struck  the  age  with  vivid- 
ness and  force.  But  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  about  it. 
The  old  empire  had  no  real  place  in  it  for  the  strength  of 
the  new  peoples.  It  is  true  that  the  Roman  army  was 
gradually  reconstituted  through  the  coming  in  of  barbarian 
recruits,  but  the  result  was  the  Romanizing  of  the  recruit, 
not  the  strengthening  of  the  Roman.  And  that  older  civ- 
ilization, now  going  to  decay,  was  desperate  before  the 
influx  of  this  new,  primitive,  and  barbaric  strength.  Je- 
rome, in  the  early  years  of  the  fifth  century,  writes : 

Who  could  believe  that  Rome,  built  upon  the  conquest  of  the 
whole  world,  would  fall  to  the  ground;  that  the  mother  herself 
would  become  the  tomb  of  her  peoples  .  .  .  How  could  the  tale 


PROTEST  OF  NORTHERN  BARBARISM   139 

be  worthily  told?  How  Rome  has  fought  within  her  own  bosom 
not  for  glory,  but  for  preservation, — nay,  how  she  has  not  even 
fought,  but  with  gold  and  all  her  precious  things  has  ransomed 
her  life.1 

Into  this  decadent  world  came  the  vigorous  strength  of 
the  Barbarians. 

"The  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  was  not  merely 
the  introduction  of  a  new  set  of  ideas  and  institutions  .  .  . 
it  was  the  introduction  of  fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind 
— the  muscle  and  the  brain  which  in  the  future  were  to  do 
the  larger  share  of  the  world's  work."  2 

Characteristics  of  the  Teutonic  Peoples. — "Fresh  blood 
and  youthful  mind" — what  may  not  these  tremendous  en- 
ergies accomplish  in  political,  economic,  social,  ethical,  re- 
ligious, and  educational  directions!  These  people  brought 
with  them  three  significant  elements  which  were  to  be 
powerful  components  of  the  new  civilization  of  the  distant 
future.  These  three  elements  are: 

(1)  The  fundamental  value  of  the  individual,  as  such, 
as  opposed  to  the  individual  as  an  atom  in  a  great  politico- 
social  system.     The  very  genius  of  the  Teutonic  life  is 
expressed  here.     Great  state-machines  may  develop,  but  in- 
dividual energy  remains  alive  under  the  whole  develop- 
ment, and  in  time  the  machine  must  reckon  with  this  lasting 
energy  of  individual  life  and  conscience.     That  this  prim- 
itive factor  has  been  perverted  in  certain  modern  Teutonic 
states  does  not  affect  the  original  fact. 

(2)  The  assemblies  of  the  people, — those  popular  gather- 
ings which  had  become  wrought  into  the  very  structure  of 
the  nature  of  these  peoples.     Out  of  these  assemblies  will 
come  representative  government,  the  actual  control  of  the 
machinery  of  the  state  by  the  individuals  who  make  up 

1  Robinson:  "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I;  p.  44f. 

2  Adams:  "Civilization  During  the  Middle  Ages,"  Ch.  V. 


140  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  state ;  and  this  will  eventually  mean  the  destruction  of 
all  absolute  types  of  government.  Democracy  is  bravely 
promised  here. 

(3)  The  attitude  of  mind  that  can  accept  law  as  a  grow- 
ing institution.  Of  course  this  is  involved  in  the  accept- 
ance of  the  individual  and  in  the  existence  of  the  popular 
assemblies.  But  not  all  peoples  accept  what  is  involved 
in  some  of  their  underlying  principles — law  as  a  living 
outgrowth  of  life  itself!  Out  of  this  will  come  such  de- 
velopments as  the  English  "Common  Law,"  intelligence 
gradually  becoming  conscious  of  the  conditions  of  life  and 
adjusting  itself  to  the  demands  of  changing  life  and  ex- 
perience, and  the  whole  structure  of  the  American  political 
conception  of  law  as  the  gradual  and  constantly  changing 
interpretation  and  organization  of  the  relationships  of  so- 
cial and  industrial  life.  Intelligence  is  implied  in  this,  in- 
telligence as  the  active,  critical,  destructive,  and  construct- 
ive energy  of  mind  by  which  the  outgrown  is  pared  away 
and  room  for  the  new  growth  is  assured.  It  is  the  very 
genius  of  the  civilization  of  the  West  as  opposed  to  the 
stagnant  absolutisms  of  the  East,  and  of  the  West  when  it 
becomes  careless. 

The  Question  of  the  Future. — Now  with  all  this  almost 
passionate  untamable  sense  of  individuality,  with  their 
democratic  assemblages  of  the  whole  people  for  the  dis- 
cussion and  determination  of  public  questions,  and  with 
their  willingness  to  meet  the  new  conditions  with  new  de- 
velopments of  laws,  these  Teutonic  peoples  met  the  existent 
civilization  of  the  South.  That  meeting  meant  ruin  of  the 
thousand  years  of  toil:  "The  result  of  an  immigration 
which  may  be  counted  by  hundreds  of  thousands  is — that 
all  the  land  is  waste"!  But  it  meant  more  than  that,  at 
least  in  the  long  run,  after  the  first  great  joy  of  destruction 
had  passed.  To  the  simple  Teutons  the  civilization  of  the 


South  possessed  a  certain  preexistent  quality.  Carelessly 
they  destroyed  much  that  had  value.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise?  But  for  all  that  they  were  filled  with  a  deep 
wonder,  even  reverence,  in  the  presence  of  its  mighty 
structures,  its  marvelous  devices,  its  massive  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance. Something  of  the  structure  of  old  Roman  so- 
cial order  and  political  life  remained.  The  church  was 
taken  over  speedily  by  the  conquerors;  Roman  law  had 
been  codified  at  Constantinople  and  was  thus  saved  for  the 
future  of  the  world-civilization ;  the  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  Greeks  was  not  wholly  lost  or  forgotten;  the  practical 
arts  of  the  South,  developed  far  beyond  the  levels  of  Teu- 
tonic knowledge,  were  preserved  in  the  industries  of  the 
common  people  which  went  on  still,  although  the  world 
was  being  turned  upside  down. 

Thus  these  mighty  types  of  energy  and  life  met  each 
other — the  Roman,  organized,  fixed,  substantial,  massive, 
impressive,  with  the  suggestion  of  eternality,  of  preexist- 
ence  about  it;  the  Teutonic,  fluid,  crude,  unorganized,  un- 
substantial, unconscious  of  its  strength,  but  strong  beyond 
the  strength  of  age:  "fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind." 
The  latter,  untutored,  almost  pathetically  submits  itself  to 
the  instruction  of  the  former,  and  for  a  thousand  years, 
more  or  less,  steadily  and  readily  sits  at  the  feet  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  South.  And  the  older  civilization,  haughty 
in  its  consciousness  of  a  mighty  past,  feels  confident  that, 
though  conquered  in  battles  and  overrun  of  territory,  its 
intellectual  and  spiritual  superiority  still  promise  eventual 
victory.  The  anarchy  of  the  barbarian  must  yield  at  last 
to  the  order  and  control  of  the  fixed  system  of  the  Empire. 

But  is  it  fanciful  to  connect  this  irruption  of  fresh,  even 
barbaric,  energy  with  the  energies  of  primitive  Christian- 
ity, with  the  simple  social  logic  of  Socrates?  Each  of 
these  movements  entered  a  protest  against  the  acceptance 


142  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  a  "closed  world,"  a  world  of  fixed,  unchanging  institu- 
tions, an  absolute  domain  of  "eternal  ideas."  Each  seems 
to  reveal  the  existence  of  something  living  in  human  life, 
something  more  permanent  than  institutions,  more  funda- 
mental than  ideas,  stronger  than  the  mighty  machinery 
of  a  world-empire. 

If  this  be  so,  we  shall  find  herein  the  clue  to  the  gather- 
ing of  forces  in  the  great  medieval  period.  On  the  one 
hand  we  shall  find  the  gathering  of  the  systematized,  the 
organized  energies  of  the  world;  the  traditional,  the  cus- 
tomary, the  habitual  tendencies;  the  political  systems,  the 
religious  organizations,  the  social  stratifications;  and 
around  all  these  the  protecting  care  of  a  great  philosophical 
development,  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  absolute  order  of 
the  world  which,  accepted  as  the  official  philosophy  of  the 
church,  will  attempt  to  control  with  ruthless  exactness  the 
life  of  the  individual  both  here  and  hereafter.  And  for 
its  greater  assurance  this  absolute  control  of  life  and  des« 
tiny  will  organize  an  elaborate  system  of  education  within 
which  all  anarchic  impulses,  all  individual  energies,  aU 
originalities,  will  be  carefully  denied.  Thus  will  the 
"larger  folkways  of  medievalism"  come  gradually  to  com- 
pletion. 

On  the  other  hand  we  shall  find  occasional  expression  of 
that  deeper  energy  of  the  world.  The  individuality,  the 
democracy,  the  progressiveness  of  the  Teuton,  the  emo- 
tional values  of  primitive  Christianity,  the  social  intelli- 
gence urged  by  Socrates,  have  not  vanished  from  the  earth ; 
they  are  germinating  beneath  the  soil  of  old  civilizations, 
gaining  strength  for  the  conflicts  that  will  surely  come. 
Occasionally  during  these  "dark  ages"  they  try  to  meas- 
ure strength  with  the  forces  of  control,  but  a  thousand 
years  must  intervene,  a  thousand  years  of  schooling,  of 
discipline,  before  they  are  really  ready  for  the  conflict. 


PROTEST  OF  NORTHERN  BARBARISM   143 

But  considering  both  aspects  of  this  situation  the  ques- 
tion of  the  future  arises :  In  the  days  when  Roman  civili- 
zation was  being  buffeted  by  Teutonic  barbarism,  where 
was  the  hope  of  the  future,  the  hope  of  civilization?  Was 
it  back  with  the  older  culture,  the  older  civilization?  Or 
was  it  with  the  new  energy,  with  the  "fresh  blood  and 
youthful  mind"? 

And  where,  in  any  generation,  is  the  supreme  hope  of  the 
future  ?  In  the  fixed  institutions  of  that  generation,  in  the 
finished  ideals  and  ideas  of  the  times,  in  the  orthodox  sys- 
tems? Or  in  the  energies,  the  impulses,  the  aspirations, 
the  enthusiasms  of  the  "fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind"? 
In  educational  efforts,  where  is  the  real  hope  of  the  future  ? 
In  the  school  as  a  fixed  institution,  with  its  conventional 
tasks,  its  routine  methods,  and  its  accepted  folkways?  Or 
in  the  children  of  the  new  generation  who  come  to  call  in 
question  all  conventional  tasks,  all  routine  methods,  all  ac- 
cepted folkways? 

The  history  of  education  knows  no  more  important  ques- 
tion than  this.  Indeed,  it  may  turn  out  that  the  history 
of  education  is  just  the  endless  effort  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion, now  in  this  way,  now  in  that.  For  the  world  seems 
not  long  contented  with  either  sort  of  answer.  At  any 
rate,  however  strange  the  contrast  may  appear,  the  great 
world-argument  gathers  through  the  Middle  Ages,  ready  to 
develop  into  the  modern  world-problem.  On  the  one  hand 
is  the  principle  of  growth  represented  by  such  seemingly 
disparate  factors  as  the  work  of  Socrates  in  individual 
experience,  the  movement  of  primitive  Christianity  in  the 
world's  moral  life,  and  the  destructive  effects  of  the  bar- 
baric invasions;  on  the  other  hand,  the  mechanisms  of 
institutionalism,  whether  in  church,  in  state,  in  the  social 
and  industrial  order,  or  in  the  pedantic  thinking  of  the 
age.  These  are  the  antagonists  in  the  slowly-gathering 


144  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

world-argument.  Growth  versus  finished  social  mechan- 
ism! Development  versus  final  folkway!  Attention,  in- 
novation, invention  versus  habit  and  tradition !  This  shall 
be  a  battle  worthy  the  attention  of  the  ages. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  COMPLETION  OF  THE  LARGER  FOLKWAYS: 
"MEDIEVALISM" 

WE  have  seen  how  Plato,  caught  in  the  drift  of  events 
that  marked  the  period  of  disintegration  of  Greek  political 
and  social  life,  proposed  to  his  age  the  magnificent  hy- 
pothesis of  an  eternal  world  of  ideas,  the  real  world,  change- 
less behind  all  changes  in  the  world  of  experience,  preex- 
istent,  the  form  or  pattern  of  all  earthly  things,  determin- 
ing and  controlling  the  nature  and  destiny  of  all  human 
activities  and  institutions.  We  have  seen  how  this  concep- 
tion fitted  into  the  political  structure  of  the  Roman  Empire 
in  its  march  toward  world-control;  how  out  of  this  union 
of  the  Greek  idea  and  the  Roman  political  structure  the 
all-inclusive  Greco-Roman  Empire  came  into  being — an  ab- 
solute political  empire  which  gradually  absorbed  all  lesser 
political  efforts  into  itself,  an  absolute  intellectual  empire 
which  gradually  triumphed  over  all  protests  and  became 
the  arbiter  of  all  beliefs.  We  have  seen  how  primitive 
Christianity  was  conquered  and  remade  to  fit  the  absolute 
intellectualism  of  this  empire,  although  something  of  its 
primitive  rebelliousness  remained  hidden  under  the  surface 
of  its  outward  conformings.  And  finally  we  have  seen  how 
the  invading  Teuton,  who  came  destroying  all  before  him, 
remained  to  wonder,  to  revere,  and  to  sit  modestly  at  the 
feet  of  this  old  system  for  a  thousand  years,  even  though 
he  still  kept  his  innermost  nature  concealed  under  the  robes 
of  his  curiosity  and  his  reverence. 

We  have  now  to  face  this  period  of  a  thousand  years  of 

145 


146  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

conflict  between  order  and  disorder,  between  the  estab- 
lished, though  somewhat  mutilated,  forms  of  a  preexistent 
civilization  and  the  undisciplined  energies  of  many  primi- 
tive peoples  who  seem  to  pour  through  the  centuries  in  an 
endless  stream.  We  must  consider  how  this  old  system  of 
universal  order  gradually  "harmonized"  and  "absorbed" 
all  these  diverse  and  discordant  elements  until  it  reached 
at  length  a  magnificent  culmination, — religious,  political, 
economic,  moral,  social,  and  intellectual, — in  the  mighty 
thirteenth  century  and  gave  complete  form  to  the  most 
splendid  organization  of  this  one  of  the  two  fundamental 
interpretations  of  human  life  that  the  world  has  ever  seen 
or  is  likely  to  see.  But  the  story  is  long  and  the  details 
endless ;  hence  we  must  give  the  outlines  only,  emphasizing 
the  important  forces  and  tendencies. 

The  Uncertainties  of  the  Middle  Ages. — If  proof  were 
needed  of  our  earlier  proposal  that  "the  race  is  educated 
by  its  experiences,"  such  proof  could  be  found  in  over- 
whelming measure  in  the  story  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It 
was  a  long  period  of  terrible  uncertainties.  Consider 
these  typical  "uncertainties": 

(a)  The  Invasions.  Beginning  with  the  coming  of  the 
Huns  from  the  East,  there  was  almost  no  century  for  a 
thousand  years  that  did  not  know  the  terrors  of  threat- 
ened or  actual  invasion.  The  Huns,  the  various  Germanic 
tribes,  the  Saracens,  Hungarians,  Northmen  and  Normans, 
Seljukian  Turks,  Tartars  and  Mongols  of  the  Golden 
Horde,  Ottoman  Turks, — they  follow  fast  on  each  other's 
heels,  some  to  destroy  and  run  away,  some  to  remain  and 
to  help  to  build. 

On  helm  and  harness  rings  the  Saxon  hammer, 
Through  Cimbric  forest  roars  the  Norseman's  song, 

And  loud  amid  the  universal  clamor 

O'er  distant  deserts  sounds  the  Tartar  gong. 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM        147 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  out  of  these  experiences 
some  still  echo  the  prayer  taught  in  the  midst  of  terror: 
"From  the  fury  of  the  Northmen,  0  Lord,  deliver  us!"  * 

(b)  Hungers   and  famines.    Agriculture  was  still   ex- 
tremely primitive  and  with  the  great  masses  of  the  people 
hunger  was  constant,  while  actual  famines  were  not  un- 
known.   The  peasant  was  "bound  to  the  wheel  of  labor" 
and  had  to  take  the  brunt  of  every  untoward  condition, 
including  the  lessening  of  food  supplies.     Burdened  with 
a  social  structure  expressing  a  certain  Platonic  complete- 
ness, ' '  what  to  him  were  Plato  and  the  swing  of  Pleiades  ? ' ' 

(c)  Diseases  and  epidemics.     Modern  ideas  of  sanita- 
tion were  unknown.     The  minglings  of  the  peoples  devel- 
oped conditions  for  contagions,  and  epidemics  of  various 
kinds  always  menaced  the  peoples  and  occasionally  swept 
away  great  numbers  of  the  population.    For  example,  the 
"Black  Death"  swept  away  two-thirds  of  the  population 
in  certain  provinces  of  France  in  the  years  1349-50;  but 
this  was  "only  the  most  terrible  of  many  plagues  which 
devastated  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages." 

(d)  Social  unrest.     Growing  out  of  the  uncertainties  of 
common  life,  the  hungers  and  famines,  the  pestilence  and 
contagions,  and  the  endless  economic  miseries,  the  Middle 
Ages  experienced  many  actual  or  threatened  "revolts"  of 
the  peasantry.    As  early  as  during  the  reign  of  Diocletian 
(284-305  A.D.)  these  revolts  were  known,  and  all  through 
the  Middle  Ages  they  continued  at  intervals.     The  most 
famous  and  most  effective,  coming  as  they  did  in  the  very 
dawn  of  the  modern  period,  were  the  rising  of  the  "Jac- 
querie" in  France    (1358)    and  the  "Peasants'  Revolt" 
under  John  Ball  and  Wat  Tyler  in  England  (1381). 

(e)  Lesser  and   greater  warfares.     The   feudal  system 
was  ostensibly  a  system  established  in  the  interest  of  peace 

i  Robinson,  "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I;  Ch.  VIII. 


148  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  social  order,  but  both  within  and  without  it  tended  to 
the  promotion  of  disorder.  The  overlord  must  fight  con- 
tinuously to  keep  the  upper  hand  of  his  vassals  within  the 
system,  and  continuous  fighting  went  on  between  the  vari- 
ous overlords  and  between  the  various  racial  and  national 
groups.  Efforts  were  made  to  secure  peace  by  such  means 
as  the  "Truce  of  God." 

(f)  Fears    of    the    supernatural.     Credulity    was    the 
chief  characteristic  of  the  mental  life  of  the  period,  and 
constantly  renewed  prophecies  of  the  imminent  "end  of 
the  world"  stirred,  thrilled,  and  in  a  sense  paralyzed  the 
activities  of  the  successive  generations ;  but  they  seemed  to 
leave  each  new  generation  as  credulous  as  its  predecessor. 
In  some  real  measure  these  supernatural  fears  led  to  the 
enthusiasms  that  attended  the  Crusades,  and  the  endless 
promises  of  absolution  and  the  like  played  into  and  fed 
these  credulous  enthusiasms. 

(g)  Intellectual   uncertainties.     Though   in   the   earlier 
centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  credulity,  and  therefore  in- 
tellectual certainty,  was  the  characteristic,  in  the  later  cen- 
turies came  a  gradual  disillusionment,   especially  among 
the  Teutonic  peoples  of  the  North.     This  was  the  promise 
of  the  eventual  development  of  science.    Little  by  little 
this  intellectual  uncertainty  gnawed  at  the  foundation  of 
the  Medieval  system  until  it  broke  through.     But  for  cen- 
turies this  intellectual  uncertainty  was  the  possession  of  a 
very  few. 

The  Certainties  and  Securities  of  the  Period. — In 
the  struggles  which  the  old  social  order  of  the  South  waged 
against  these  desperate  uncertainties  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
real  principles  were  at  stake — social  order,  established  and 
secure,  versus  anarchy,  savagery,  ' '  the  return  into  the 
brute."  There  could  have  been  no  continuous  fight 
against  such  overwhelming  odds  had  not  the  old  civilization 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM       149 

of  the  South  been  sustained  by  fundamental  "certainties" 
and  securities.    "What  were  some  of  these  ? 

(a)  The  church  and  the  religious  organization.     Here 
was  a  practical  retreat  from  the  turbulence  of  the  times. 
The  churches,  monasteries,  convents,  and  hermitages  pre- 
served old  learnings,  kept  alive  the  love  of  knowledge, 
nurtured  human  hopes  in  quiet,  improved  modes  of  indus- 
try, arbitrated  quarrels,  and  conserved  the  promise  of  a 
nobler  age  to  be. 

(b)  The  hope  of  eternal  security.    The  church  could 
offer  one  other  motive  for  standing  by  the  older  order:  it 
held  the  keys  to  the  gates  of  eternity,  that  real  world 
( Plato 's  heaven,  now  Christianized  into  Augustine 's  ' '  City 
of  God")  which  was  to  be  the  "happy  home"  of  all  the 
faithful,  the  "fatherland"  of  the  soul.     This  belief  found 
expression  in  many  hymns,  e.g.,  "Jerusalem  my  Happy 
Home." 

(c)  The  feudal  system.    For  a  time  this  system  seemed 
to  promise  complete  security  and  order,  and  its  develop- 
ment in  England  did  secure  probably  as  great  degree  of 
order  as  the  diverse  conditions  of  the  age  could  afford. 
But  on  the  whole,  as  we  have  seen,  the  feudal  system  was 
but  a  temporary  expedient,   productive  of  mighty  evils 
with  which  modern  social  hopes  have  had  to  wage  continu- 
ous warfare. 

(d)  The  survivals  of  Roman  law.     Deeper  than  the  ex- 
pedients of  the  feudal  system,  though  not  fully  realized  or 
understood,  lay  the  fundamentals  of  social  order  in  the 
conceptions  of  Roman  law.     This  was  now,  of  course,  an 
absolute  system  of  law,  not  generally  operative,  but  codi- 
fied and  complete;  but  a  complete  system  was  what  the 
Middle  Ages  wanted. 

(e)  A  great  literature.    The  central  element  here  was 
the   Bible.    But   certain   other  materials  were   orthodox, 


150  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

especially  the  writings  of  the  "fathers,"  and  these  helped 
to  sustain  the  courage  of  the  age,  though  of  course  very 
little  of  this  was  in  the  possession  of  the  common  people. 

(f)  The  conception  of  authority.  The  whole  trend  of 
history  to  the  height  of  the  Middle  Ages  emphasized  the 
doctrine  of  one  "lasting,  universal,  supreme  authority  to 
which  the  civilized  world  owed  obedience." 

The  Growth  of  the  Medieval  System. — Medievalism  is 
the  culmination  of  many  lines  of  development  and  their 
convergence  into  a  superficially  consistent  social  and  in- 
tellectual whole.  In  the  midst  of  the  terrific  uncertainties 
of  the  whole  period  the  longing  for  order  became  the  most 
persistent  human  motive.  Augustine  had  set  forth  the 
ideal  in  his  impressive  descriptions  of  the  "City  of  God." 
The  gradual  developments  of  centralized  authority  and 
control,  the  building  of  permanent  cities  as  centers  of 
civilization,  the  adjustment  of  social  conditions  so  that 
fixed  status  became  more  universal,  the  subordination  of  all 
critical  intelligence  to  the  eternal  realities  of  the  faith — 
all  these  details,  and  many  more,  show  the  universal  long- 
ings for  order.  It  was  indeed  an  age  of  endless  contrasts 
in  every  aspect  of  existence.  But  the  souls  of  the  noblest 
spirits  longed  and  worked  for  order,  a  permanent  and  final 
order.  This  is  what  Greek  intellect  had  tried  to  create; 
it  was  what  Roman  law  had  stood  for ;  it  was  the  deep  ex- 
pectation of  Hebrew  piety.  And  now,  throughout  this 
period,  all  logical  powers,  all  pious  hopes,  and  all  practical 
administrative  activities  were  turned  in  this  same  direc- 
tion. 

But  the  Platonic  conception  of  the  world  failed  to  com- 
plete what  it  had  begun.  Rather,  that  diluted  doctrine 
known  as  Neoplatonism,  which  had  largely  taken  the  place 
of  the  original,  failed  to  carry  out  the  promise ;  or,  it  may 
be,  there  was  too  much  of  Socrates  in  Plato.  At  any  rate, 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM       151 

the  unrest  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  with  their 
Crusades,  their  contacts  with  many  ancient  peoples  and 
types  of  civilization,  especially  that  of  the  Arabs,  with  the 
growth  of  national  aims  and  the  development  of  commer- 
cial activities — these  tendencies  proved  too  much  for  the 
strength  of  the  Platonic  doctrine,  and  civilization  was  near 
to  disintegration.  But  a  new  tool  was  at  hand.  Aris- 
totle, lost  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  Aristotle  "the 
conservative  and  the  definer  of  what  is,"  came  to  the  res- 
cue of  the  distracted  social  world.  Brought  back  to  the 
West  by  the  Saracens,  Aristotle  first  frightened  the  leaders 
of  the  church;  he  seemed  all  that  a  philosopher  of  Chris- 
tendom should  not  be.  But  when  it  became  apparent, 
through  further  study  of  his  words,  that  Aristotle  had  no 
prejudices  for  or  against  any  particular  doctrine  or  creed, 
that  he  was  primarily  a  logic,  a  way  of  looking  at  the  world, 
the  church  turned  to  him  with  gratitude.  Aristotle  became 
the  absolute  intellectual  dictator  of  the  culminating  period 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  set  the  bounds  to  human  think- 
ing. Hitherto  there  had  been  no  recognized  authority  in 
the  intellectual  world.  Plato  was  never  an  authority,  but 
only  a  dominating  influence.  Hence,  up  to  this  time  mental 
life  had  had  some  free  play.  "By  establishing  now  the 
supreme  authority  of  Aristotle  in  every  sphere  to  which 
reasoning  applies — the  natural  world  as  well  as  the  meta- 
physical— and  by  interpreting  Aristotle  in  her  own  way,  a 
tool  was  at  hand  for  holding  reason  in  check,  without  at  the 
same  time  denying  it  its  rights.  Aristotle  was  himseli 
identical  with  reason,  not  to  be  denied  or  questioned, 
Even  in  science,  the  question  was,  not  what  does  nature  re< 
veal,  but  what  does  Aristotle  say ;  and  when  science  began 
to  emerge,  the  authority  of  the  philosopher  was  actively 
used  to  check  its  growth. ' ' * 

i  Rogers:  "A  Student's  History  of  Philosophy,"  p.  215. 


152  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Educational  Developments  of  the  Middle  Ages. — No 

fundamental  scientific  progress  was  made  in  a  thousand 
years  of  such  life;  but  educational  developments  of  pro- 
found significance  for  all  subsequent  ages  occurred. 
These,  too,  we  must  note  in  outline  in  order  to  properly 
appreciate  their  scope. 

(a)  Various  "revivals  of  learning."    Though  learning 
languished,  it  never  really  perished.     Revivals  took  place 
under  Julian   (361-363),  under  Charlemagne   (771-814), 
and  in  the  thirteenth  century  as  a  part  of  the  culmination 
of  the  developing  folkways  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

(b)  Monastic    influences    in    education.    But    the    real 
preservation  of  the  learning  of  the  world  was  due  to  the 
influences  of  the  monastic  life.     This  was  a  universal  char- 
acteristic of  the  whole  period  from  the  fourth  to  the  thir- 
teenth century  and  later.    Monasteries,  with  all  their  in- 
fluences  and   accessories,    good,   bad,    and   neutral,   were 
found  from  the  north  of  Scotland  to  the  far  Orient ;  teach- 
ers and  clergy  and  "brothers"  were  found  in  desert  and 
forest  and  city  street;  and  almost  all  sorts  of  doctrines, 
not  utterly  unorthodox,  came  from  the  monasteries.     The 
social  and  educational  ideal  of  the  monasteries  was   an 
ascetic  discipline — fasting,   scourging  the  flesh,   reducing 
the  bodily  wants  to  a  minimum,  destroying  the  natural 
appetites,  the  discipline  of  the  "carnal  man"  for  the  sake 
of  growth  in  moral  and  spiritual  power.     The  vows  of  the 
monastic  were  chastity,  poverty,  and  obedience,  thus  deny- 
ing the  significance  of  the  family,  industry,  and  political 
institutions.     Monastic  life  was  completely  dominated  by 
the  "rules  of  St.  Benedict."    Work  and  study  made  up 
the    day's    routine.     Study    became    centralized    in    the 
monasteries.     They  became  the  schools,  the  teacher-train- 
ing institutions,  the  universities.     Books  were  copied  here 
and  libraries  were  slowly  built  up.    They  were  the  re- 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM       153 

treats  of  the  scholars  and  the  centers  of  practically  all  edu- 
cational effort. 

(c)  The  "Seven  Liberal  Arts."     The  learning  of  the 
past  came  to  the  Middle  Ages  in  an  organized  form,  worked 
over  by  the  scholars  of  the  very  late  classical  period  and 
called  "The  Seven  Liberal  Arts."     These  "arts"  included 
the  old  trivium  (grammar,  rhetoric,  and  dialectic)  and  the 
quadrivium  (arithmetic,  geometry,  music,  and  astronomy). 
Of  course  these  terms  included  a  wider  content  than  they 
do  at  present.1 

(d)  Scholasticism.     The  methods  and  forms  of  civiliza- 
tion in  these  ages  came,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  old  in- 
tellectual and  institutional  life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans; 
but  the  materials  of  the  new  social  development  were  found 
in  the  tremendous  diversities  of  the  races  and  peoples  of 
the  age.     The  task  of  organizing  all  these  strange,  new 
materials  into  the  old  forms,  of  cramming  the  old  catego- 
ries with  these  new  contents,  of  filling  the  "old  bottles" 
with  this  "new  wine,"  was  no  easy  task;  and  it  called  for 
the  development  of  the  highest  powers  of  subtle  dialectic. 
"Scholasticism"  is  the  outcome.     In  ordinary  school  his- 
tories scholastic  dialectic  is  usually  ridiculed,  being  por- 
trayed as  concerned  with  such  amusing  subjects  as  "How 
many  angels  can  stand  on  the  point  of  a  needle?"    But 
in  reality  the  scholastic  development  is  the  actual  organi- 
zation of  all  the  intellectual  forces  of  the  old  order  in 
preparation  for  the  life  and  death  struggle  with  the  new 
order  that  is  to  come :  and  there  is  nothing  amusing  about 
getting  ready  for  a  life  and  death  struggle,  though  there 
is  something  very  exhilarating  about  it. 

(e)  The    universities.     Scholastic    discussions    centered 
gradually  at  certain  rather  strategic  places.    Bologna  in 
the  south,  under  the  leadership  of  Irnerius,  became  the  most 

i  See  Abelson :    "The  Seven  Liberal  Arts." 


154  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

famous  center  of  legal  learning  (about  1100-1130).  Paris, 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  rather  unorthodox  teachings  of 
Abelard,  became  the  chief  center  of  theological  learning 
and  discussion  (about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century)  ; 
and  before  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  Europe  had 
fourteen  universities.  The  universities  soon  became  the 
possessors  of  a  monopoly  of  the  teaching  function ;  and  the 
question  may  well  be  raised  whether  their  chief  function 
was  the  development  of  knowledge,  or  the  control  of  knowl- 
edge in  the  interest  of  existing  conditions.  The  fact  that 
the  universities  developed  at  those  places  and  under  those 
conditions  where  great  social  conflicts  were  impending 
seems  to  indicate  that  their  major  function  was  the  control 
of  learning  in  the  interest  of  established  conditions. 

(f)  Chivalry.  Warfare  tore  young  men  from  their  life 
in  settled  society  and  sent  them  out  to  the  freedom  of  the 
battle  and  the  march.  Especially  did  the  Crusades  tend 
to  liberate  young  men  from  all  the  constraints  that  the 
established  social  system  of  Europe  had  so  carefully  devel- 
oped. Young  soldiers,  returning  from  contacts  with  the 
institutions  of  other  lands  and  with  years  of  freedom  from 
conventional  restraints,  could  prove  and  did  prove  to  be 
very  real  dangers  to  the  established  social  order.  Hence 
society  must  educate  its  future  soldiers  to  implicit  belief 
in  the  established  social  order  and  an  acceptance  of  that 
social  order  as  the  final  organization  of  civilization  before 
they  set  out  on  their  travels.  The  educational  system  of 
"chivalry"  accomplished  this.  Young  men  destined  to  be 
knights  were  completely  habituated  to  the  existent  order, 
and  they  swore  by  holy  vows  to  help  maintain  the  system, 
despite  all  disillusioning  experiences  elsewhere. 

Thus  we  can  see  that  through  all  the  obvious  educational 
institutions  and  influences  of  the  age  men  were  being 
habituated  to  the  accepted  social  order.  Education  was  the 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM       155 

accomplished  "handmaiden"  of  civilization  and  men  were 
trained  to  "fit  into  the  system."  Through  industry,  civic 
life,  religious  institution,  and  educational  effort  there  ran 
one  single  motive:  the  salvation  of  civilization  is  in  the 
conformity  of  the  individual;  hence  all  educational  aims 
center  in  the  processes  that  produce  conformity. 

The  Culmination  of  the  Middle  Ages. — But  there  is  an- 
other aspect  of  the  matter  that  needs  to  be  noted.  Not 
merely  is  the  salvation  of  civilization  secured  by  the  con- 
formity of  the  individual,  but  it  is  in  this  way  alone  that 
the  individual  comes  to  have  any  real  being.  The  indi- 
vidual has  no  value  or  significance  in  himself.  Here,  just 
as  in  the  primitive  folkways,  he  gets  his  value  and  signifi- 
cance from  his  membership  in  the  organized  community. 
He  gets  his  citizenship  from  the  state,  his  morality  from 
the  social  tradition,  his  religion  from  the  church,  and  his 
intelligence  from  the  school.  By  himself  he  is  nothingness. 
' '  Filthy  rags, ' '  fit  only  to  be  thrown  upon  the  refuse  heap : 
this  is  the  orthodox  doctrine. 

This  absolute  system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  reaches 
its  culmination  in  the  great  politico-religious  organization 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  finds  its  most  complete 
statement  in  the  Summa  Theologiae  of  Thomas  Aquinas * 

i  The  work  of  Thomas,  the  "Angelical  Doctor,"  illustrates  as  noth- 
ing else  can  the  sublime  heights  of  faith  which  the  age  reached. 
Catholic  scholars  look  up  to  him  as  the  final  authority  in  all  matters 
of  medieval  thought.  Prof.  Walsh,  in  his  "Greatest  of  the  Cen- 
turies" (Page  281),  quotes  Father  Vaughn  as  follows:  "The  'Summa 
Theologica'  is  a  mighty  synthesis,  thrown  into  technical  and  scien- 
tific form,  of  the  Catholic  traditions  of  East  and  West,  of  the  in- 
fallible dicta  of  the  Sacred  Page,  and  of  the  most  enlightened  con- 
clusions of  human  reason,  gathered  from  the  soaring  intuitions  of 
the  Academy  (Platonic)  and  the  rigid  severity  of  the  Lyceum  (Aris- 
totelian). Its  author  was  a  man  endowed  with  the  characteristic 
notes  of  the  three  great  Fathers  of  Greek  Philosophy:  he  possessed 
the  intellectual  honesty  and  precision  of  Socrates,  the  analytic  keen- 
ness of  Aristotle,  and  that  yearning  after  wisdom  and  light  which 


156  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

(1227-1274),  its  graphic  presentation  in  the  vision  of 
Dante,  and  which  is  an  all-inclusive  world  based  on  the 
principles  of  Aristotle,  is  really  deeply  rooted  in  one  aspect 
of  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  humanity.  In  an  age 
of  endless  uncertainties  man  must  find  some  security  upon 
which  he  can  rest  habitually,  even  thoughtlessly,  while  he 
is  grappling  with  the  immediate  practical  problems  about 
him.  This  Medieval  statement  of  life  is  so  realistic  (Aris- 
totle is  the  philosopher  of  the  existent)  that  it  is  securely 
fortified  against  the  assaults  of  either  brute  force  (for 
men  will  gladly  die  for  it)  or  petty  criticism.  For  human- 
ity must  catch  sight  of  something  essentially  larger,  nobler, 
more  worth  while,  before  this  conception  can  be  abandoned, 
and  petty  criticism  can  never  bring  that  finer  world.  No, 
this  conception  of  life  as  a  great,  absolute  system  of  think- 
ing, feeling,  and  acting  cannot  be  ignored  or  lightly  swept 
aside.  It  is,  of  course,  of  the  nature  of  the  primitive  folk- 
ways; it  is  built  of  habit,  custom,  tradition,  and  institu- 
tion, all  bound  together  by  the  explicit  logic  of  Aristotle, 
which  is  the  implicit  logic  of  the  folkways.  It  persists  in 

was  the  distinguishing  mark  of  'Plato  the  divine,'  and  which  has  been 
one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  the  highest  intuition  of  religion." 
To  this  surpassing  greatness  of  faith  of  the  thirteenth  century 
many  scholars  of  all  faiths  have  offered  testimony.  Mr.  Henry  Osborn 
Taylor,  in  his  "Medieval  Mind,"  (Vol.  1,  p.  13)  says:  "The  peoples 
of  western  Europe,  from  the  eighth  to  the  thirteenth  century,  passed 
through  a  homogeneous  growth,  and  evolved  a  spirit  different  from 
that  of  any  other  period  of  history — a  spirit  which  stood  in  awe  be- 
fore its  monitors  human  and  divine,  and  deemed  that  knowledge  was 
to  be  drawn  from  the  storehouse  of  the  past ;  which  seemed  to  rely  on 
everything  except  its  sin-crushed  self,  and  trusted  everything  except 
its  senses;  which  in  the  actual  looked  for  the  ideal,  in  the  concrete 
saw  the  symbol,  in  the  earthly  Church  beheld  the  heavenly,  and  in 
fleshly  joys  discerned  the  devil's  lures;  which  lived  in  the  unrecon- 
ciled opposition  between  the  lust  and  vain-glory  of  earth  and  the 
attainment  of  salvation;  which  felt  life's  terror  and  its  pitifulness, 
and  its  eternal  hope;  around  which  waved  concrete  infinitudes,  and 
over  which  flamed  the  terror  of  darkness  and  the  Judgment  Day." 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  MEDIEVALISM       157 

ceremonials,  rituals,  beliefs,  creeds,  doctrines,  and  scrip- 
tures which  soothe  and  satisfy  the  soul ;  it  offers  a  compre- 
hensive life  to  humanity ;  it  answers  all  questions  that  may 
be  rightly  asked;  it  promises  all  that  the  universe  has  to 
give  as  reward  for  faithfulness  and  obedience;  and,  when 
the  intellectual  implications  of  the  system  have  been  fully 
considered,  we  are  convinced  that  here  is  a  philosophy  of 
life  and  existence  from  which  only  the  most  daring  and 
brilliant,  or  the  most  reckless  and  foolhardy,  can  ever  hope 
to  escape.  History  has  many  truthful  and  fateful  stories 
to  tell  of  the  inevitable  outcome  of  all  efforts  to  escape. 
Any  who  would  attack  the  permanence  or  validity  of  this 
medieval  interpretation  of  life  must  come  prepared  to  ex- 
hibit that  eternal  vigilance  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  price 
of  all  liberties. 

It  is  this  mighty  structure  of  ordered  and  completed 
civilization  which  stands  as  the  background  of  all  modern 
movements.  The  whole  of  the  "modern  world"  struggle 
is  an  effort  to  escape  from  the  iron  implications  of  this 
medieval  system  into  greater  freedom  along  all  those  lines 
that  seem  to  be  humanly  valuable  and  worthy  of  effort. 
From  these  accomplished  heights  of  social,  religious,  politi- 
cal, and  intellectual  organization  we  must  now  turn  to  a 
survey  of  the  processes  by  which  humanity  has  contrived 
to  escape,  in  some  small  measure,  into  another  sort  of 
world. 


PART  IV 
THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  ROOTS  OF  THE  MODERN  UNDERNEATH  THE  MEDIEVAL 

Medievalism  not  the  Final  Statement  of  Life. — The 

mighty  structure  of  medievalism  seems  almost  the  final  de- 
nial of  those  old  impulses  toward  freedom,  individuality, 
and  progressive  growth  which  we  have  seen  in  such  indi- 
viduals as  Socrates,  such  internal  protests  as  primitive 
Christianity,  such  racial  irruptions  as  the  Teutonic  inva- 
sions. But  not  so.  Under  all  the  political  and  social  mag- 
nificence, the  religious  authority,  and  the  intellectual  sub- 
tlety of  medievalism  there  were  deep-lying  energies  which 
maintained  their  continuity  of  life  with  the  original  im- 
pulses of  the  race;  and  these  were  yet  to  be  heard  from. 
In  the  working  out  of  that  medieval  world-inclusive  struc- 
ture (as  its  builders  supposed  it  to  be),  many  elements  were 
overlooked,  ignored  as  useless,  despised  as  harmless,  or 
veneered  over  and  considered  safely  out  of  the  way.  But 
those  vital  elements  but  wait  their  time.  Medievalism  is 
not  the  final  statement  of  the  significance  of  human  life. 
We  must  now  attend  while  life,  the  tireless  worker,  now 
with  the  aid  of  intelligence  attempts  to  rebuild  the  struc- 
ture bit  by  bit,  and  now  with  the  aid  of  passion  and  revo- 
lution tears  down  a  majestic  wing  in  one  wild  orgy  of  re- 
bellious energy,  leaving  to  the  long  future  the  task  of  pro- 
viding the  new  structure  more  nearly  fitted  to  the  needs  of 
men.  Goethe  says  somewhere,  "Law  is  mighty,  but  might- 
ier is  need,"  and  that  tells  the  story  of  the  revolt  from  the 
majestic  finality  of  medievalism.  Human  need  cannot  be 
answered  forever  under  any  perfected  and  growthless  sys- 

161 


162  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tern.  With  the  risk  of  losing  all,  humanity  still  dares  soon 
or  late  to  try  the  unknown  ways,  to  make  the  great  adven- 
ture! 

The  Roots  of  the  Modern  World. — What  were  the  ener- 
gies that  remained  from  all  the  protests  of  the  past,  dor- 
mant through  all  these  centuries,  waiting  their  time? 
Medievalism  is,  in  its  very  perfection,  struck  with  inner 
decay;  living  energies,  promises  of  a  new  world,  shoot  up 
through  the  ruins  of  the  old.  What  are  these  new-old 
forces  of  life  ? 

The  significance  of  the  individual,  basic  factor  in  the 
doctrine  of  Socrates,  boldly  recognized  in  primitive  Chris- 
tianity, fundamental  in  the  democracy  of  the  Teutons,  is 
never  completely  covered  up.  It  appears  as  a  sort  of  in- 
consistent element  in  the  Neoplatonic  philosophy,  is  con- 
served in  the  thought  and  practices  of  the  mystics  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  crops  out  here  and  there  in  the  specula- 
tions of  the  nonconformist  philosophers.  As  we  come  to 
the  end  of  the  medieval  period  individuals  begin  to  appear, 
to  stand  out;  and  the  period  of  transition  brings  us  many 
such — men  who  dare  to  stand  for  the  new  impulses,  ex- 
ploration, invention,  innovation,  science,  an  intelligent  out- 
look upon  life  and  the  world.  Even  Platonism  itself  fails 
the  builders  of  the  larger  folkways,  just  because  Plato 
could  not  quite  deny  the  place  of  the  individual  in  the 
social  world. 

The  significance  of  primitive  Christianity  seemed  all  but 
completely  covered  up,  both  in  practice  and  in  specula- 
tion; but  the  energies  of  revolt  inherent  in  that  earliest 
expression  of  Christianity  were  not  lost.  Primitive  sects 
were  in  existence  all  through  the  period ;  heretics  constantly 
called  in  question  the  validity  of  accepted  dogmas;  the 
speculative  mystics,  like  Scotus  Erigena,  even  restate  that 
old  revolutionary  proposition  of  the  founder  of  Christian- 


THE  BOOTS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  163 

ity  that  growth,  not  finished  system,  is  the  nature  of  the 
world.  Reformers  appear  long  before  the  Reformation, 
e.g.,  Wycliffe  in  England  and  Huss  in  Bohemia;  even  St. 
Augustine,  in  many  ways  the  official  philosopher  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages,  is  divided  in  his  allegiance  to  the  fin- 
ished and  absolute  universe,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  he 
becomes  the  philosophical  mainstay  of  the  Reformation. 
Indeed,  running  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  something  of 
the  spirit  of  revolt  is  to  be  found.  Even  as  members  of  a 
perfect  system  which  offers  them  all  things  for  their  faith- 
ful obedience,  men  grow  tired  of  endless  passivity  and  re- 
ceptivity, of  intelligenceless  acquiescence  in  tradition  and 
perfection.  Primitive  energies  and  impulses  cannot  be  for- 
ever ignored  or  denied. 

The  primitive  racial  characteristics  of  the  "new  and 
exuberant''  peoples,  though  veneered  over  with  studied 
culture  and  "morality,"  cannot  be  destroyed.  Deep  under 
the  soil  they  remain  largely  unaffected,  unchanged,  ready 
to  germinate  into  diverse  nationalities  at  the  earliest  pos- 
sible moment.  And,  indeed,  racial  instincts  could  not 
vanish  in  an  age  when  new  racial  conflicts  were  constantly 
occurring.  We  have  already  seen  how  the  age  was  one  of 
constant  invasions  and  incursions.  These  crises  kept  alive 
the  deeper  racial  antagonisms,  despite  the  theoretical 
"unity  of  Christendom,"  and  helped  to  lay  the  foundations 
for  the  great  intellectual  awakening  of  later  centuries. 

Characteristic  Expression  of  these  Energies  in  the 
Middle  Ages. — The  common  life  of  the  people,  despite  the 
feudal  control,  showed  certain  aspects  of  freedom.  The 
towns  were  refuges  of  escaped  serfs,  working-places  of  the 
freed  populations,  the  homes  of  the  growing  "Third  Es- 
tate" whose  development  was  eventually  to  mark  the  over- 
throw of  the  power  of  the  clergy  and  the  nobility.  In 
many  towns  and  cities  democratic  tendencies  were  striving 


164  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

within  the  people;  free  towns,  self-governing  communes, 
were  developing.  Here,  too,  corporate  guilds  of  the  work- 
ers grew  and  flourished,  with  their  tremendous  significance 
for  free  workmanship  and  free  intelligence.  Occasionally 
the  miseries  of  the  poor  touched  the  heart  of  an  ecclesiastic, 
and  he  dared  to  voice  his  indignation.  And  more  than  one 
heretic  poet  dared  to  denounce  the  selfishness  of  the  clergy 
who  fawned  upon  the  rich  and  forgot  the  poor.1 

The  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  constituted  a  long 
period  of  discipline  in  work  and  in  subordination,  but  also 
in  training  for  freedom  under  the  larger  and  finer  civiliza- 
tion of  the  future.  Obedience  does  not  always  assure  com- 
plete and  final  subordination ;  it  may  prepare  for  the  per- 
sonal self-control  of  a  larger  democratic  social  order. 

Alongside  this  life  of  the  common  people  we  must  note 
what  has  been  called  the  "medieval  dilemma,"  which 
played  an  insidious  part  in  the  disillusionment  of  the  peo- 
ple and  in  the  eventual  releasing  of  energies  for  the  mod- 
ern struggle.  This  "dilemma"  arose  out  of  the  fact  that 
while  this  earthly  life  must  go  on  individually  and  in  the 
race,  being  pushed  on  by  impulses  and  energies  deeper 
than  thought,  yet  the  medieval  ideal  was  an  expression  of 
the  worthlessness  of  this  life  itself.  "One  must  live  and 
work;  but  the  only  real  value  in  life  is  getting  out  of  life 
into  the  heavenly  existence."  Such  a  plain  contradiction 
of  values  must,  and  does,  sooner  or  later  become  conscious ; 
its  final  result  is  disillusionment. 

Another  expression  of  these  energies  of  progress  is  seen 
in  the  life  on  the  frontiers  of  Europe.  All  through  the 
Middle  Ages  there  were  men  who,  like  Arthur, 

moving  everywhere, 

Cleared  the  dark  places,  and  let  in  the  law, 
And  broke  the  bandit  holds  and  cleansed  the  land. 

i  See  Robinson's  "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I ;  Ch. 
XVII. 


THE  ROOTS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  165 

But  the  law  they  let  in  was  not  always  the  law  of  the 
empire;  more  frequently  it  was  the  "law  of  necessity." 
For  the  great  problem  of  the  frontiers  is  (as  we  have  seen 
in  the  whole  history  of  America)  :  Shall  civilization  grow 
up  everywhere  in  conformity  with  a  scheme  handed  down 
from  the  past,  from  the  old  centers  of  settled  life;  must 
everything  fit  into  the  old  patterns?  Or  shall  men  be  free 
to  use,  under  new  conditions,  the  new  energies  released,  the 
new  patterns  suggested  by  the  new  conditions,  the  new 
intelligence  developed  by  the  new  situations?  This  ques- 
tion was  obviously  the  most  crucial  of  all  those  that  arose. 
We  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  its  implications  more 
fully  in  a  later  section,  and  we  may  leave  it  here. 

A  third  expression  of  this  energy  of  the  times  is  seen  in 
the  mingling  of  the  peoples  of  all  known  continents.  The 
contacts  of  Europeans  with  other  races,  as  well  as  among 
themselves,  the  very  processes  of  making  Europeans  (for 
Asiatics  and  Africans  were  making  themselves  over  into 
Europeans  all  through  this  period),  the  explorations  of  oc- 
casional restless  individuals,  the  extension  of  commerce 
through  the  great  East,  and  especially  the  expanding  or 
horizon,  interest,  and  knowledge  through  the  experiences  of 
the  Crusades — all  these  items  show  how  far  from  extinct 
were  the  primitive  impulses  of  the  race. 

"We  may  indicate  by  one  illustration  the  profound  influ- 
ence of  these  contacts  and  minglings  of  the  peoples,  though 
the  illustration  presents,  perhaps,  the  most  noteworthy 
case.  In  732  A.D.  the  advance  of  the  Saracens  into  Central 
Europe  by  way  of  Spain  was  stopped  at  Tours,  in  Gaul. 
Turned  back  upon  themselves,  these  cultured  Mohamme- 
dans settled  down  to  the  occupancy  of  Spain,  making  Cor- 
dova one  of  the  four  great  centers  of  the  Moslem  Empire, 
the  other  three  being  Damascus  in  Syria,  Bagdad  on  the 
Tigris  River,  and  Cairo  on  the  Nile.  Here,  in  an  empire 


166  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

stretching  "from  the  river  Indus  to  the  Pillars  of  Her- 
cules, the  same  religion  was  professed,  the  same  tongue 
spoken,  the  same  laws  obeyed. ' '  It  may  be  remarked  with- 
out serious  exaggeration  that  this  empire  was  the  home  of 
the  finest  civilization  of  the  age.  At  any  rate,  it  has  been 
said  that  "from  the  eighth  to  the  twelfth  century  the  an- 
cient world  knew  but  two  civilizations, — that  of  Byzantium 
and  that  of  the  Arabs";  and  of  these  the  Arab  civilization 
was  much  more  energetic,  much  more  intelligent.  Passing 
by  the  advances  which  they  made  in  agriculture,  manufac- 
turing, and  commerce,  we  may  note  that  they  built  a  uni- 
versity in  Cairo  which  at  one  time  had  twelve  thousand 
students,  and  that  their  great  library  in  Spain  is  said  to 
have  contained  four  hundred  thousand  manuscript  vol- 
umes in  the  tenth  century.  They  gave  the  world  its  first 
impulse  toward  mathematics  since  the  Alexandrian  Age, 
practically  inventing  algebra,  improving  trigonometry,  and 
introducing  the  Arabic  system  of  notation  to  take  the  place 
of  the  old  and  clumsy  Roman  system.  In  many  other  lines 
they  were  prepared  to  teach  the  Christian  civilization  north 
of  the  Pyrenees.  But  our  special  interest  at  this  time  arises 
from  the  fact  that  they  gave  back  to  Europe  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle,  lost  for  a  thousand  years  but  treasured  by 
these  Oriental  scholars  and  now  thrown  by  them  into  the 
current  of  discussion  out  of  which  was  to  come  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  Western  Europe.  It  is  true  that  the  actual 
result  of  this  return  of  Aristotle  was  reactionary ;  he  helped 
to  give  the  finishing  touches  of  perfection  and  completeness 
to  the  structure  of  medievalism.  But  the  coming  of  the 
Mohammedans  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  that  "cross- 
fertilization  of  cultures"  by  which  the  world  is  saved  from 
its  provincialisms,  from  its  tendencies  toward  the  levels  of 
stagnate  custom. 

Summary. — So  through  all  these  experiences,  through 


THE  BOOTS  OF  MODERN  LIFE  167 

the  resurgence  of  those  primitive  energies  and  impulses 
which  dared  to  battle  at  length  with  the  perfect  system  of 
medievalism,  through  the  growth  of  knowledge  of  othef 
peoples  and  lands,  through  the  development  of  a  middle 
class  or  Third  Estate  in  the  cities,  with  special  privileges 
and  with  a  growing  sense  of  independence,  through  the 
life  on  the  frontiers  where  strong  men  were  fighting  great 
battles  with  strong  forces,  making  such  adjustments  of  con- 
ditions as  were  possible  under  the  circumstances — through 
centuries  of  these  experiences  there  came  about  a  gradual 
disillusionment  of  the  barbarians  of  the  North  as  to  the 
superiority  of  the  civilization  of  the  South;  there  came  a 
gradual  suspicion  of  the  ultimate  reality  of  a  scheme  of 
life  which,  for  the  great  masses  of  the  people,  subordinated 
all  the  concerns  of  this  world  to  the  hope  of  another ;  there 
came  the  freeing  of  energies  with  which  to  do  the  work  of 
the  great  unknown  future. 

Before  turning  to  that  larger  work,  however,  we  must 
pause  a  moment  to  consider  some  of  the  foreshadowings  of 
that  coming  modern  world  in  the  long  experience  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  modern  world  has  come  to  its  ideals  and 
its  tasks  through  revolutions;  but  the  roots  of  even  a  revo- 
lutionary age  may  be  found  in  the  soils  of  antecedent  cen- 
turies, and  the  great  revolution  may  be  preceded  by  lesser 
expressions  of  the  same  creative  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

SOME  PORESHADOWINGS  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD  IN  THE 
MEDIEVAL 

WE  have  noted  that  from  one  point  of  view  the  problem 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  conflict  between  order  and 
disorder,  between  established  results  of  civilization  and  the 
anarchy  of  constant  invasion  and  migration  (Chapter 
XVII).  But  from  another,  and  perhaps  more  valid  point 
of  view,  we  have  now  to  see  that  the  problem  of  that  period 
was  the  conflict  between  the  fundamental  social  forces  that 
tend  toward  progress  and  the  forces  that  make  for  fixed 
systems  and  social  stagnation.  We  have  briefly  followed 
the  gradual  development  of  the  mighty  structure  of  social 
order  from  the  days  when  Plato  interpreted  Greek  social 
disintegration  in  such  ways  as  to  make  it  still  help  toward 
a  higher  and  more  absolute  social  system ;  we  have  seen  it 
culminate  under  the  logic  of  Aristotle  and  the  intellectual 
leadership  of  Thomas  Aquinas  in  that  majestic  and  all-in- 
clusive statement  of  the  significance  of  human  life  which  is 
generally  called  "medievalism,"  one  of  the  two  funda- 
mental interpretations  of  life  that  the  world  has  worked  out 
to  date.  We  have  seen,  also,  that  underneath  the  surface 
of  the  medieval  system  the  "roots  of  progress"  were  still 
alive,  promising  eventual  growth  of  a  very  different  kind 
of  world  (Chapter  XVIII).  We  must  now  note  how,  even 
in  this  very  period  and  despite  all  the  efforts  of  the  "sys- 
tem," many  evidences  of  life  and  many  promises  of  the 
new  order  came  to  light.  As  was  natural  and  inevitable, 
each  of  these  evidences  appears  in  the  form  of  a  struggle 

168 


FORESHADOWINGS  OF  MODERN  PERIOD       169 

with  existing  conditions  and  institutions.  We  shall  briefly 
note  some  of  these  "struggles." 

(a)  The  Rise  of  the  Nations  as  against  the  Empire  and 
the  Church. — The  efforts  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  directed 
to  the  development  and  complete  organization  of  ' '  Christen- 
dom," a  holy  state  which  should  include  and  control  all 
the  diverse  nationalities  of  the  world  under  one  central 
authority.  But  the  effort  to  smother  the  racial  instincts 
of  the  many  peoples  who  now  occupy  Europe  proved  futile ; 
the  folkway  traditions  of  these  various  races  were  too 
deeply  rooted  in  their  very  personal  and  social  natures  to 
be  thus  easily  covered  over  and  destroyed.  And,  indeed, 
nothing  could  be  imagined  that  would  have  made  the 
human  race  more  uninteresting  than  the  success  of  this 
plan  of  reducing  all  peoples  to  the  same  drab  level  of  con- 
formity to  a  program  conceived  in  Rome.  Emotionally, 
intellectually,  educationally,  the  loss  would  have  been  im- 
measurable. But  it  was  a  movement  that  could  not  suc- 
ceed. England  gradually  assumed  her  own  career;  and 
though  her  story  is  closely  inwrought  with  the  story  of  the 
continental  states,  yet  after  449  Anglo-Saxon  diversity 
made  certain  the  development  of  an  independent  racial, 
social,  and  political  order. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  France  from  and  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  work  of  the  stronger  Capetian  kings,  for 
example,  Louis  VI  (1108-1137).  In  a  sense  it  may  even 
be  said  that  the  very  events  that  brought  about  the  break- 
ing-up  of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne, — racial  struggles 
between  the  Franks  and  the  Germans, — promised  an 
eventual  nation  of  the  Franks.  The  whole  story  of  this 
development  is,  of  course,  too  long  to  be  told  in  this  place. 
But  this  much  must  be  recognized:  Deep  under  the  sur- 
face of  the  "conformities"  of  the  Middle  Ages,  racial  and 
national  traits  were  preserved  against  the  day  when  the 


170  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

conflict  between  these  diverse  traits  and  the  centralizing 
tendencies  might  be  waged  on  somewhat  even  terms.  The 
rise  of  nations  has  meant  almost  endless  warfares;  but  it 
has  preserved  the  great  diversities  of  life  from  destruction 
and  given  us  the  picturesque  social  and  political  life  of 
the  present.  And  not  even  the  horrors  of  war  can  make 
us  forget  these  values. 

(b)  The  Struggles  between  the  Cities  and  the  Feudal 
Monarchies. — After  the  destruction  of  the  Roman  towns  by 
the  invading  barbarians  Europe  knew  little  of  the  old 
town  life  until  about  the  tenth  century.  Then,  in  the 
midst  of  the  Hungarian  invasions,  Henry  the  First  of 
Germany  (919-936),  known  usually  as  "Henry  the 
Fowler,"  gave  great  impetus  to  town  building  by  setting 
up  many  fortified  places  in  which,  he  decreed,  one  out  of 
every  nine  peasants  should  dwell  for  the  purpose  of  stor- 
ing up  one-third  of  the  annual  harvest  of  the  other  eight. 
Henry  became  known  to  history  as  the  ' '  Builder  of  Cities, ' ' 
and  town  life  became  again  a  recognized  type  of  living. 
Little  by  little  the  cities  developed ;  new  types  of  industry 
grew.  Cities  became  centers  of  intelligence,  centers  of 
aspiration,  centers  of  organization  in  the  long  struggle  for 
human  freedom.  They  were  given  special  charters  by  some 
of  the  national  kings.  They  learned  to  play  fast  and  loose 
with  feudal  and  national  monarchs  in  their  determination 
to  become  free.  They  became  centers  of  commerce,  with 
all  that  that  implies;  and,  of  course,  they  became  the 
refuges  of  all  the  oppressed,  the  homes  of  all  workers  who 
were  not  immediately  attached  to  the  soil.  The  struggles 
between  the  cities  and  the  central  authorities  is  one  of  the 
most  definite  of  all  the  struggles  of  the  period  for  freedom 
and  human  rights.1 

In  this  connection  we  must  note  also  the  struggle  be- 

i  Robinson :   "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I,  Ch.  XVIII. 


tween  the  feudal  organization  of  industry  (mostly  agri- 
cultural) and  the  rising  industries  of  the  towns,  especially 
as  represented  by  the  merchant  and  craft  gilds.  The  de- 
velopment of  the  varied  industries  represented  by  these 
gilds  is  one  of  the  most  important  evidences  of  the  non- 
conformist nature  of  much  of  the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

(c)  The    Struggles    between    Heretic    Sects    and    the 
Church. — Here  again  we  come  upon  a  long  story.    We 
have  seen  how  all  the  efforts  of  the  established  order  were 
directed  to  the  task  of  bringing  primitive   Christianity 
under  control  and  harmonizing  it  with  the  institutional 
attitudes  of  the  Roman  Empire.     The  task  seemed  to  have 
been  rather  successfully  accomplished.    But  that  was  only 
on  the  surface.     "Heretic"  sects  abounded  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages.    We  cannot  go  into  this  in  detail.    We  may 
merely  call  attention  to  the  Waldensians  and  the  Albigen- 
sians  as  representative  heretical  groups  who  steadfastly 
refused  to  submit  to  the  demands  of  centralized  religious 
authorities  and  who  maintained  their  heretical  integrity 
until  the  days  of  religious  intolerance  had  passed  away.1 

(d)  The  Development  of  Mysticism. — As  a  religious  ex- 
perience this  tended  to  undermine  the  authority  of  the 
church.    Mysticism    was    an    individual    experience.    In 
the  very  nature  of  things  it  could  not  be  standardized  or 
controlled.    It  offered  the  means  for  bringing  in  all  sorts 
of  innovations.     Yet  it  was  so  distinctively  religious  and 
real  that  it  could  not  be  absolutely  denied  as  a  normal 
phase  of  the  Christian's  life. 

(e)  Gradual   Rise   of   Vernacular   Languages   and   the 
Growth    of    National    Literatures. — Nothing    more    fully 
shows  the  developmental  forces  that  were  at  work  under 
all  the  unprogressive  systems  of  the  age  than  this.    Lan- 
guage cannot  be  bound  by  any  standards.    Latin  became 

ild.:  Ch.  XVH. 


172  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

corrupted,  interwoven  with  many  other  tongues,  differen- 
tiated. The  Romance  and  other  tongues  arose  little  by 
little,  in  mongrel  dialects  or  in  more  pure  fashion.  Along 
with  this  growth  of  vernacular  languages  came  the  devel- 
opment of  indigenous  literatures,  the  work  of  singers, 
poets,  balladists  in  many  lands.  A  new  life  was  in  germi- 
nation under  all  the  smooth  structure  of  medievalism,  a 
life  that  breathed  free  air,  dared  new,  strange  flights  of 
fancy,  and  promised,  in  good  time,  to  come  forth  into  full 
expression. 

(f)  The  Struggle  between  the  Ecclesiastical  and  Secular 
Ideals  of  Life. — The  Crusades  had  been  expected  to  bring 
about  overwhelming  enthusiasms  for  the  church  and  her 
service.  But  they  had  turned  out  quite  otherwise.  The 
political  results  were  negligible;  the  religious  results  were 
practically  nothing;  but  the  secular  results  were  many. 
The  life  of  Europe  was  shaken  to  its  foundations.  Dor- 
mant intellects  were  stirred  by  contacts  with  many  peoples 
and  strange  customs,  and  provincialisms  gave  place  to  the 
beginnings  of  a  type  of  cosmopolitanism.  National  rival- 
ries, rising  out  of  the  competition  of  national  types,  helped 
to  speed  on  the  development  of  separate  nationalities. 
Commercial  activities  were  immensely  strengthened  by  the 
realization  of  the  wealth  of  the  East,  and  by  the  knowledge 
of  new  varieties  of  merchandise,  especially  certain  lux- 
uries of  Eastern  growth  or  manufacture.  The  Crusades 
were  great  undertakings,  requiring  the  transportation  of 
large  armies  and  the  furnishing  of  immense  supplies  of 
foods.  The  sense  of  accomplishment  was  acquired  in  these 
undertakings,  rather  than  the  sense  of  dependence  upon 
the  church.  So  much  so-  was  this  the  case  that  that  par- 
ticular form  of  education  called  "Chivalry"  was  largely 
developed  as  a  means  of  offsetting  the  disintegrating  ef- 
fects of  this  period  of  the  Crusades.  Yet,  upon  the  older 


FORESHADOWINGS  OF  MODERN  PERIOD      173 

religious  and  political  institutions,  despite  all  efforts,   a 
secular  conception  of  life  was  coming  into  existence. 

(g)  The  Undercurrents  of  Philosophy. — Aside  from  the 
theological  philosophizing  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  thinkers 
of  the  age  were  largely  divided  into  two  great  groups,  with 
later  a  third,  or  mediating  group.  These  two  primary 
groups  were  the  realists  and  the  nominalists.  The  main 
problem  in  dispute  was  as  to  the  reality  of  ' '  general  ideas. ' ' 
This  question  was  inherited  from  Plato.  At  first  sight  its 
importance  does  not  seem  to  be  very  great.  But  our  real 
comprehension  of  the  Middle  Ages  here  gets  its  test.  If  we 
apprehend  the  significance  of  this  conflict  between  these 
two  "schools,"  we  shall  be  able  to  feel  that  we  have  gained 
a  real  insight  into  the  problems  of  the  period ;  if  we  do  not 
understand  this  conflict,  we  have  failed  to  grasp  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  age.  The  realists  believed  that  general 
ideas  were  real;  the  nominalists  held  that  general  ideas 
were  merely  names,  convenient  fictions,  useful  for  purposes 
of  discussion  but  having  no  objective  reality.  For  exam- 
ple, in  the  sentence  "The  horse  is  a  noble  animal,"  horse 
does  not  refer  to  some  particular  animal,  but  to  a  class  of 
animals.  As  such,  the  nominalists  claimed  that  "horse" 
had  no  existence,  that  it  was  merely  a  word.  The  realists, 
on  the  other  hand,  claimed  that  such  general  ideas  were 
the  most  real  of  all  existences,  more  real  than  any  par- 
ticular horse,  which  was,  indeed,  but  an  imperfect  shadow 
of  the  eternal  reality,  the  idea  "horse."  As  stated  above, 
this  seems  like  a  very  unimportant  distinction ;  and  it  may 
seem  ridiculous  that  just  this  conflict  marks  the  intel- 
lectual crisis  of  the  Middle  Ages,  while  its  practical  decision 
carries  tremendous  significance  for  the  whole  future  devel- 
opment of  society.  Yet  this  is  the  case,  and  its  understand- 
ing is  most  important.  Let  us  see ! 
From  the  centers  of  authority,  like  Rome,  traditional 


174  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

leaders  were  attempting  to  dictate  the  whole  course  of  civ- 
ilization, keeping  it  within  proper  bounds  of  traditional- 
ism, imposing  upon  it  the  established  forms  of  the  past, 
gradually  hemming  it  in  and  bounding  it  with  orthodox 
programs  or  approved  ideas.  Whence  came  these  ideas? 
They  were  revealed  to  prophets  and  teachers  and  leaders 
of  old,  so  it  was  claimed.  These  are  the  eternal  ideas,  the 
final  forms  of  social  order.  These  are  the  realities  of  the 
world;  and  when  the  world  shall  have  been  completely 
organized  into  these  ideal  forms,  we  shall  at  last  have 
reached  the  real  world,  the  world  of  Plato 's  ideas. 

Out  on  the  frontiers,  both  geographical  and  intellectual, 
on  the  other  hand,  men  were  extending  the  boundaries  of 
civilization,  cutting  down  the  wilderness,  letting  in  the 
light,  setting  up  such  homes  and  neighborhoods  as  were 
possible  under  the  conditions  and  asking  only  that  they  be 
permitted  to  go  ahead  in  the  great  task  of  transforming 
the  wilderness  into  farms  and  cities.  Here,  under  such 
conditions,  these  old  traditions  hampered  the  work  of  mak- 
ing a  world;  these  "eternal  ideas"  stood  in  the  way  of 
doing  the  tasks;  a  "preexistent"  social  order  made  actual 
social  orders  impossible.  This  being  the  case,  the  man  on 
the  frontiers  had  to  be  a  "nominalist."  He  held  that  such 
general  ideas  as  "the  church"  or  "the  empire"  were  mere 
names,  having  no  reality  that  he  need  be  concerned  about; 
he  held  his  task  to  be  that  of  cutting  down  the  wilderness, 
and  if  any  "general  idea"  should  interfere  with  the  ac- 
complishment of  that  task,  then  so  much  the  worse  for  the 
idea! 

Now  from  the  standpoint  of  the  central  authorities  such 
acts  and  such  doctrines  were  dangerous;  they  threatened 
the  authority  of  the  institutions  which  existed  under  those 
general  ideas.  More  than  that,  if  the  progressive  activities 
of  the  frontiersman  and  the  nominalistic  doctrine  of  the 


FORESHADOWINGS  OF  MODERN  PERIOD      175 

unorthodox  philosopher  should  prevail,  the  whole  structure 
of  medieval  thought  and  the  whole  social  order  would  be  in 
danger  of  passing  away.  So  we  can  see  that  this  conflict 
between  realism  and  nominalism  was  profoundly  important. 
It  was  really  a  discussion  of  this  great  social  question: 
"May  social  order  be  allowed  to  go  ahead  with  its  pressing 
tasks  out  on  the  frontiers  under  such  guidance  as  its  own 
intelligence  can  develop  there,  under  the  conditions  that 
exist;  or  must  all  social  development  be  determined  in  ac- 
cordance with  preexistent  programs,  be  organized  from 
some  authoritative  center,  be  controlled  by  traditional  con- 
ceptions and  imposed  upon  local  conditions  by  arbitrary 
authority,  whether  they  fit  or  not?"  The  nominalist  in- 
sisted on  the  former  program,  the  realist  on  the  latter.  It 
was  a  struggle  between  two  great  social  programs,  rather 
than  a  mere  philosophizing.  And  in  the  long  run  the  de- 
cision was  rendered  by  events,  rather  than  by  any  intel- 
lectual tribunal.  The  work  of  civilization  on  the  frontiers 
went  on  despite  all  disputes.  The  Platonic  influence  failed, 
and  the  extreme  form  of  realism  lost  its  grip.  The  Sara- 
cens brought  new  forms  of  learning  into  Europe;  among 
these  new  forms  was  mathematics,  a  new  tool  for  breaking 
down  old  prejudices.  The  Crusades  developed  great  mili- 
tary enterprises;  the  undertaking  of  engineering  projects, 
such  as  the  building  of  castles,  became  common.  "Impos- 
sible" things  were  being  done.  Intellectual  activities  were 
' '  in  the  air. ' '  Aristotle  had  come  to  light,  too ;  and  while 
his  first  influence  must  be  counted  in  favor  of  the  great 
structure  of  medievalism,  yet  his  final  influence  counted  the 
other  way,  since,  as  the  "philosopher  of  the  existent,"  he 
had  to  recognize  that  what  was  going  on  on  the  frontiers 
was  real  and  must  be  accepted  as  such.  Thus  the  intel- 
lectual foundations  of  medievalism  crumbled. 

In  place  of  both  the  .realism  of  the  traditional  author!- 


176  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ties  and  the  nominalism  of  the  frontiers,  there  arose,  how- 
ever, a  new  theory  based  largely  on  Aristotle  and  called 
conceptualism.  According  to  this  theory,  general  ideas  are 
not  objectively  real,  but  they  are  much  more  than  mere 
names ;  they  are  ways  of  thinking  similarities,  and  thus  for 
purposes  of  organizing  thought  they  are  thoroughly  valid, 
but  not  for  purposes  of  coercion.  This  allowed  larger 
measures  of  freedom  for  social  action,  while  keeping  some 
place  for  the  knowledge  of  the  past.  But  it  forecast  the 
end  of  medievalism  as  an  absolute  system  and  at  the  same 
time,  by  criticising  the  more  extreme  demands  of  nominal- 
ism, which  asked  for  the  complete  freedom  of  the  "fron- 
tier" from  all  old  controls,  it  showed  that  no  age  can  be- 
come complete  by  cutting  itself  off  entirely  from  the  past, 
that  each  age  needs  the  discipline  of  its  impulses  that  comes 
from  contacts  and  conflicts  with  the  accomplishments  of  the 
past. 

Other  Important  Developments. — The  invention  of 
printing,  dating  in  the  form  of  "block  books"  from  the 
fourteenth  century  and  in  the  form  of  movable  types  from 
the  fifteenth,  gave  tremendous  impetus  to  the  spread  of 
knowledge  and  afforded  the  greatest  aid  in  the  intellectual 
awakening  which  was  so  soon  to  take  place. 

The  introduction  of  gunpowder  illustrates  in  an  interest- 
ing way  the  attitude  of  the  modern  period  as  opposed  to  the 
medieval  attitude.  The  problem  of  security  and  quiet  in 
the  days  of  petty  feudal  warfare  had  brought  about  the 
building  of  great  castles,  often  utterly  impregnable  to  the 
weapons  and  offensive  measures  of  the  times.  Castle-build- 
ing was  thus  the  answer  of  medievalism  to  that  particular 
phase  of  the  disorder  of  the  age;  it  was  an  absolute  and 
final  answer,  as  befitted  the  age.  But  gunpowder  made 
the  castle  impossible  as  a  place  of  residence ;  it  blew  down 
the  walls,  wrecked  the  foundations,  and  set  up  once  more 


FORESHADOWINGS  OF  MODERN  PERIOD      177 

the  old  problem  of  finding  security.  The  Middle  Ages 
looked  for  absolute  answers  in  which  the  intelligence  could 
rest;  the  modern  world  looks  for  problems  which  can  wor- 
thily engage  the  intelligence. 

It  were  a  long  task  to  relate  the  whole  story  of  these  im- 
plicit tendencies  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  their  explicit  for- 
mulations and  expressions.  Perhaps  enough  has  been  set 
forth  to  show  that  all  through  the  period  internal  fires  of 
life  and  light  existed,  largely  unsuspected,  but  always  un- 
quenchable. At  any  rate,  we  have  seen  how  commerce,  in- 
dustry, and  even  war  (the  occupations  of  Plato's  two 
lower  classes)  became  the  training-fields  of  the  very  im- 
pulses that  medievalism  attempted  to  deny  and  defeat  in 
its  absolute  system.  To  be  sure,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  for- 
mer chapter,  medievalism  recognized  the  common  base  im- 
pulses of  life,  but  only  to  the  extent  of  offering  expiation 
for  them.  It  is  of  the  very  irony  of  fate,  therefore,  that 
these  despised  impulses  should  find  such  constant  exercise 
in  the  vocations  of  the  serf,  the  vassal,  the  merchant,  and 
the  soldier,  thus  gradually  training  and  disciplining  a 
mighty  strength  for  future  expression  and  control. 

We  have  seen,  too,  how  these  activities  found  expression 
in  distinctive  literatures, — ballads  and  songs  of  the  trou- 
badours, etc.  A  new  life  was  surging  up  through  individ- 
uals and  they  could  not  be  silent.  They  were  accomplish- 
ing work  despite  obstacles.  Their  sense  of  accomplishment 
was  largely  nurtured  by  the  functioning  of  the  very  im- 
pulses which  the  great  systems  had  put  under  the  ban,  and 
this  feeling  of  work  done,  of  enterprises  accomplished,  gave 
the  nominalists  actual  grounds  in  their  own  experiences 
for  fighting  the  tyranny  of  institutions  and  the  demands  of 
the  realists. 

For  the  age  had  many  "frontiers."  War,  commerce, 
and  the  industry  by  which  men  live,  as  well  as  the  wilder- 


178  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

nesses  of  the  North  and  West,  were  "frontiers."  Men 
were  schooled  in  actual  tasks ;  they  lived  actual  experiences ; 
they  braved  actual  conditions;  they  laid  those  "spectres  of 
the  mind" — the  ideas  of  the  realists — and  won  out.  They 
made  this  world  signify  something  worth  while  and  laid 
the  foundations  for  the  Renaissance,  an  age  that  should 
move  over  completely  to  the  field  of  the  impulses,  interests, 
and  experiences  of  this  world. 

We  must  now  note  how  these  deep  impulse-fires  break 
forth  into  the  first  great  burning  and  glowing  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  For  the  conflict  between  the  established  order 
and  these  deep-lying  forces  of  progress  must  now  become 
open,  definite,  and  inextinguishable. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  FIRST  FULL  OUTBURST  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD  SPIRIT 

The  Middle  Ages  as  a  Germination  Period. — In  the 

structure  of  medievalism  man,  the  individual,  counted  for 
nothing,  as  we  have  seen.  Whatever  worth  he  possessed 
at  any  time  came  to  him,  because  of  his  membership  in  a 
great  system,  social,  political,  religious,  and  educational. 
That  was  the  theory.  But  the  facts  were  different,  at  least 
in  some  respects,  for  there  were  men  all  through  this  period 
who  dared  to  question  this  fundamental  theory,  who  dared 
to  assert  the  superiority  of  the  individual  to  the  institutions 
within  which  he  lived.  We  come  now  to  a  time  when  such 
assertions  become  the  characteristic  of  the  age. 

But  what  shall  save  this  new  age  of  criticism  and  dis- 
illusionment from  the  sophisms  of  that  period  of  the  break- 
down of  the  folkways  in  Athens?  This  shall  save  it;  that 
for  a  thousand  years  men  have  been  disciplined  and  buf- 
feted and  "battered  with  the  shocks  of  doom  to  shape  and 
use."  Energies  have  been  slowly  gathering,  impulses 
slowly  ripening,  purposes  gradually  maturing.  The  very 
handing  over  of  the  common  life  to  the  discipline  of  work 
prepared  the  way.  The  outcome  can  be  foreseen  somewhat ; 
history  has  taught  some  lessons.  The  Renaissance  is  not 
an  accident.  It  is  the  flowering  of  the  human  spirit  after 
long  germination  and  growth  in  the  soil  of  fundamental 
experience;  it  is  proof  that  humanity  possesses  something 
more  fundamental  than  the  power  of  thinking,  viz.,  the  im- 
pulses of  life  and  growth;  it  is  the  expression  of  the  hy- 
pothesis that  man,  growing  by  institutions,  must  yet  out- 

179 


180  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

grow  soon  or  late  the  institutions  of  his  own  construction ; 
it  is  demonstration  of  the  proposition  that  humanity  grows 
weary  of  the  perfect  and  turns  gladly  to  the  imperfect,  the 
incomplete,  wherein  room  for  larger  life  and  fuller  growth 
can  be  found. 

The  Character  of  the  Renaissance. — The  Middle  Ages, 
despairing  of  this  world  as  essentially  evil,  had  undertaken 
to  construct  another  world  beside  this  one,  as  we  may  say, 
wherein  certain  ideal  forces  were  to  be  found  and  certain 
desirable  characteristics  were  to  be  cultivated.  Men  were 
to  give  up  their  energies,  their  initiatives,  their  originali- 
ties, their  own  wills,  their  personal  desires,  and  in  exchange 
they  were  to  receive  infinite  rewards,  eternal  recompenses  in 
some  other,  later,  unworldly  world.  But  the  Renaissance 
turned  boldly  away  from  this  conception.  Men  must  give 
over  this  waiting  until  a  future  condition  for  their  chance 
to  live;  they  must  strike  out  into  the  midst  of  life  here 
and  now.  "The  development  and  unlimited  increase"  of 
the  present  life  became  the  goal.  Revolt  from  the  dreari- 
ness of  scholasticism;  denial  of  the  ideal  of  asceticism;  a 
new  enthusiasm,  unknown  since  the  Greeks,  for  beauty  and 
nature;  the  opening  out  of  a  larger  universe,  of  vaster 
majesties  and  expansive  spaces,  yet  capable  of  becoming  re- 
lated to  man  as  his  personal  home;  man  as  the  master  of 
his  own  existence,  not  the  pawn  of  a  great  System-maker; 
the  awakening  of  dormant  and  latent  energies ;  the  libera- 
tion of  forces  chained  for  a  thousand  years;  a  great,  rest- 
less, tumultuous,  forward  movement  which  liberates  new 
aspects  of  the  human  spirit  and  develops  new  strengths  as  it 
moves — all  this  was  the  Renaissance! 

The  Renaissance  in  Italy. — For  many  reasons  Italy  be- 
came the  birthplace  of  this  modern  spirit.  The  cities  of 
the  North  of  Italy,  of  a  population  mingled  of  blood  from 
both  Latin  and  Teutonic  civilizations,  had  long  been  cen- 


THE  RENAISSANCE  181 

ters  of  political  and  intellectual  unrest.  Economic  and 
commercial  rivalries  had  developed  a  certain  strain  of  in- 
dividualism which  had  given  trouble  to  the  authorities  often 
enough.  This  attitude  of  individualism  had  flowered  into 
great  literature ;  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio  had  given 
gradually  developing  expression  to  the  new  life  that  was 
to  call  the  old  in  question.  These  all  lived  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  Petrarch,  especially,  had  opened  the  very 
floodgates  of  the  hidden  life  of  the  Middle  Ages;  he  was 
the  first  of  genuinely  modern  writers.  He  reveals  the  whole 
gamut  of  human  passion, — aspiration,  ideal,  and  suffering, 
— analysing  the  self  not  as  immortal  soul,  but  as  the  sub- 
ject of  a  wonderful  range  of  experiences  having  human 
meanings  and  values.  Whatever  this  rebirth  may  have 
meant  in  other  lands,  in  other  times,  in  Italy  it  meant  some- 
thing profoundly  human,  profoundly  personal,  internal, 
expansive,  revolutionary.  Three  phases  of  this  new,  ex- 
panding life  must  be  noted  here,  especially  by  way  of  con- 
trast with  the  narrow  world  of  medievalism. 

First,  there  emerged  here  in  Italy,  as  we  have  briefly 
noted,  a  new  world  of  the  emotions,  as  opposed  to  the  dry 
and  formal  intellectualism  of  medievalism.  Now,  as  never 
before,  reality  seems  to  exist  in  the  immediate  experiences, 
the  feelings  and  emotions  of  life,  especially  those  which  are 
unusually  vivid ;  and  those  who  have  found  their  way  into 
this  new  experience  revel  in  the  beauty  of  the  world,  in  the 
poetry  of  nature,  in  the  rich  and  varied  life  of  the  senses. 
"When  we  set  this  expression  of  life  over  against  the  official 
emotions  and  perfected  standards  of  the  old  order,  we  see 
how  far  the  modern  age  was  going  astray  from  beaten 
paths. 

Second,  there  emerged  a  new  social  world,  as  opposed  to 
the  institutionally  perfect  social  order  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
This  was  the  world  of  human  relationships  and  fellowships 


182  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

which  came  as  the  natural  development  out  of  the  new 
recognition  of  emotion  and  feeling.  The  sense  of  human- 
ity, the  sympathies  of  common  life,  the  romantic  loves  and 
tender  friendships  of  the  modern  times  began  to  appear,  to 
be  accepted  as  proper  to  the  world.  Life  became  rich  in  its 
opportunities  for  the  development  of  these  social  relation- 
ships, and  a  sort  of  "heaven-on-this-earth"  conception 
seemed  to  take  the  place  of  that  now  somewhat  uncertain 
"Heaven"  of  the  medieval  promise. 

Third,  there  emerged  a  new  physical  world,  the  world  of 
common  nature  in  place  of  that  world  of  base  nature,  in  op- 
position  to  which  the  ideals  of  medievalism  found  their  set- 
ting. Nature  to  the  medievalist  was  hard,  harsh,  soulless, 
unless,  indeed,  it  was  tenanted  by  those  dark  spirits  which 
lent  their  aid  to  the  magicians  with  their  "black  arts." 
Nature  was  evil,  something  to  be  escaped  from,  a  weight 
that  dragged  the  soul  in  the  mire,  the  "body  of  death." 
But  in  the  rebirth  of  the  human  spirit  something  of  the 
old  Greek  emotion  attached  itself  to  nature ;  nature  became 
the  setting  of  human  experience,  the  field  for  man's  life- 
work,  the  home  of  his  spirit.  Out  of  this  new  feeling  to- 
ward nature  comes  the  whole  development  of  modern  sci- 
ence,— man's  power  of  control  over  the  energies  of  the 
universe, — as  well  as  the  whole  development  of  the  new 
practical  and  artistic  life  of  the  modern  world. 

The  "Revival  of  Learning." — But  such  new  experiences 
of  feeling,  of  social  intercourse,  and  of  a  friendly  nature 
overwhelmed  man  as  soon  as  the  first  swift  rush  of  joy  was 
over.  The  medieval  spirit  of  fear  of  all  things  earthly 
will  intrude.  Men  find  themselves  in  the  state  of  mind  of 
the  child  who  has  run  away  from  school  for  a  joyful,  for- 
getful holiday  far  from  books  and  lessons  in  the  deep  and 
cool  recesses  of  the  spring  woods,  but  who  must  explain 
things  at  the  end  of  the  day.  After  all,  are  these  new  ex- 


THE  RENAISSANCE  183 

periences  real?  Is  beauty  a  proper  ideal?  May  human- 
ity be  happy?  When  the  ideals  of  "other-worldliness" 
are  given  up  in  order  that  men  may  indulge  themselves  in 
the  temporary  experiences  of  the  senses,  the  feelings,  and 
emotions,  hard,  cold,  unyielding  habit  comes  back  at  length 
and  stands  like  an  accusing  schoolmaster,  demanding: 
' '  What  have  you  to  say  for  yourselves ;  why  shall  not  pun- 
ishment be  pronounced  upon  you  ? ' '  And  the  whole  struc- 
ture of  beauty  and  freedom  seems  about  to  fall  to  pieces 
about  the  truants. 

And  these  new  experiences,  so  varied,  so  rich  in  color, 
so  redolent  of  the  world  of  humanity  and  nature,  so  ex- 
pressive of  the  pent-up  energies  and  the  stifled  emotions 
of  the  thousand  buried  years,  must  justify  themselves  as 
being  truly  human,  i.e.,  as  ministering  to  genuinely  human 
developments;  must  submit  to  the  criticism  that  will  pare 
away  their  excesses ;  must  consent  to  that  larger  fulfilment 
of  which  they  are  admittedly  but  the  first  faint  promise. 

And  where  shall  they  turn  for  this  justification,  this  criti- 
cism, this  suggestion  as  to  the  larger  fulfilment  of  these 
incipient  experiences?  Is  there  in  human  history  any 
justification  for  these  human  hopes?  If  so,  where? 
Where  else  but  in  those  original  fountains  of  natural  liv- 
ing, those  original  sources  of  artistic  criticism,  in  that  life 
which  first  joined  beauty  and  knowledge  into  a  perfect 
practice, — in  Greece  herself?  As  the  wise  school-child,  re- 
turning home  after  the  stolen  holiday  to  meet  the  chidings 
of  the  adult  world,  appeals  from  those  chidings  to  the  mem- 
ories of  youth,  so  this  age  of  the  Renaissance  appealed  from 
the  prudent  maxims  of  an  over-intellectualized  age  to  the 
memories  of  that  age's  childhood,  to  the  childhood  of  the 
world.  "Greece  shall  justify  us  in  these  new  experiences. 
If  they  be  overdone,  Greece  shall  teach  us  how  to  criticise 
away  their  exaggerations;  if  they  fall  short  of  complete- 


184  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ness,  Greece  shall  teach  us  how  to  fulfill  our  lives  along  this 
rediscovered  way  of  life."  So  the  great  search  for  the 
culture-materials  of  the  Greeks  began  and  went  on  apace 
and  out  of  these  experiences  emerged  a  new  antiquity.  The 
barren  abstractions  of  Aristotle  passed  into  oblivion,  save 
in  the  official  philosophies.  In  their  place  came  the  over- 
flowing richness  of  life  in  the  poets  of  the  morning  of  the 
world,  the  first  "humanists."  The  whole  wealth  of  classical 
culture  gradually  dawned  upon  the  age,  answering  the 
deepest  needs  of  these  rebellious,  hopeful  minds.  The  Ren- 
aissance  was  a  revolt  against  a  state  of  mind.  It  bred  a 
new  state  of  mind,  which  was  at  first  naturally  timorous 
and  doubtful  of  its  own  reality  and  validity,  but  it  found 
refuge,  justification,  criticism,  and  fulfilment  in  the  re- 
stored world  of  prfmitive  joy  and  beauty  of  the  Greeks. 

Here,  as  nowhere  else  in  the  history  of  education  or  cul- 
ture, the  significance  of  the  classics  appears.  The  Greek 
classics  are  the  full  expression  of  a  life  that  had  grown 
almost  completely  human  within  the  rather  narrow  world 
of  the  Greek  city-state.  The  classics  did  not  produce  that 
Greek  life;  they  expressed  it,  criticised  it,  justified  it,  en- 
riched it,  fulfilled  it,  and  gave  it  to  the  world  of  after  time. 
So  these  classics  did  not  produce  the  Renaissance ;  that  lies 
deep  in  the  undercurrents  of  life  and  experience,  as  we  have 
seen.  But  once  the  age  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  human 
joy  and  natural  beauty,  it  needed  the  support  and  the  criti- 
cism of  other  experiences,  of  other  ages ;  its  own  particular 
experiences  must  be  universalized.  It  must  be  freed  from 
the  invidious  opinion  of  the  Middle  Ages  that  particular 
experiences  are  unreal  and  unsafe,  and  it  must  be  made  to 
meet  even  the  demands  of  the  logic  of  Aristotle  that  that 
which  is  to  be  depended  upon  as  real  must  be  shown  to  be, 
or  to  have  been,  the  experience  of  some  other  human  being, 
some  other  group  or  age.  The  classics  prove  themselves 


THE  RENAISSANCE  185 

really  worth  while,  the  finest  educational  materials  the 
world  knows,  when  they  are  thus  used  to  support,  to  criti- 
cise, to  fulfill,  to  universalize  a  mood,  an  experience,  which 
otherwise  would  die  of  starvation  or  become  impossible 
through  undisciplined  excesses.  The  age  of  the  great  hu- 
manists in  Italy  is  one  of  the  great  educational  periods  of 
the  world.  The  hungry  soul  of  the  race,  starved  for  a 
thousand  years  or  fed  on  the  husk  of  dry  theological  dis- 
cussion, came  to  this  new  feast  of  life  and  beauty  with 
almost  terrifying  avidity.  Men  came  face  to  face  with  the 
fundamental  realities  of  experience;  never  again  would 
they  go  back  to  the  old  position  of  subordination  to  the 
machinery  of  a  system,  at  least  not  completely. 

Educational  Attitude  of  the  Renaissance. — The  educa- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages  had  been  as  unified  as  its  compre- 
hensive social  structure.  Its  materials  were  the  careful 
gathering  of  the  ages,  selected  to  effect  one  certain  end — 
the  instruction  of  the  soul  for  Heaven.  Its  methods  were 
as  certain  and  as  effective;  the  Aristotelian  position  that 
the  way  to  know  anything  is  to  go  to  work  and  learn  it 
was  the  basic  principle.  These  conceptions  seemed  all  dis- 
solved as  unrealities  in  the  bright  light  of  this  new  day. 
That  old  world  could  be  known  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
learning  it.  In  its  place  has  come  a  new  world,  a  world 
of  feeling,  a  world  that  cannot  be  known  in  the  same  way, 
a  world  that  must  be  felt.  That  is  to  say,  the  Renaissance 
has  intimations  of  new  worlds  of  experience,  rather  than 
exact  or  complete  realization  of  them.  But  if  these  new 
worlds  cannot  be  known,  how  can  the  rising  generation  be 
educated?  Does  not  education  consist  in  filling  the  mind 
with  knowledge  ?  We  have  already  seen  how  the  age  itself 
was  fed  on  the  lavish  bounty  of  the  Greeks.  We  have 
noted  that  the  Renaissance  exhibited  three  aspects  of  the 
new  world,  each  of  which  was  eventually  to  become  the 


186  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

basis  of  a  clamorous  program  of  education.  These  three 
aspects  were  the  inner  world  of  the  emotions,  the  world  of 
social  relationships,  and  the  world  of  physical  nature.  The 
first  of  these  found  its  nourishment,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the 
Greek  materials;  the  second  will  find  its  materials  and  its 
expression  in  the  larger  contacts  with  men  in  all  phases  of 
experience;  the  third  will  come  to  flower  and  fruition  in 
the  growing  physical  sciences.  With  these  rich  but  still 
largely  unknown  worlds  before  the  age,  three  educational 
avenues  were  thus  more  or  less  vaguely  apparent :  first, 
into  the  still  unrealized  treasures  of  antiquity ;  second,  into 
the  broadening  realms  of  the  social  world;  third,  into  the 
utterly  unsuspected  fields  of  nature.  Each  of  these  lines 
of  development  will,  as  we  shall  see,  yield  its  rich  fruitage 
for  the  enlargement  of  human  life,  or,  failing  this,  become 
a  burden  for  the  modern  world  to  bear. 

Meanwhile  we  must  not  forget  that  the  whole  emphasis 
of  life  has  changed  from  reliance  upon  the  hopes  of  another 
world,  with  whatever  of  mighty  machinery  may  be  neces- 
sary to  make  sure  of  the  attainment  of  that  world,  to  a  pro- 
found sense  of  the  worth  of  the  present  world.  Life  has 
assumed  an  almost  pagan  character.  Even  the  leaders  of 
the  church  read  their  Greek  poets  more  than  their  Bible. 
The  zest  for  the  human  and  the  beautiful  has  found  match- 
less expression  in  the  arts.  This  inner  spirit  of  revolt,  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance,  has  flowered  into  all  forms  of  art, 
especially  sculpture,  architecture,  and  painting.  The  en- 
ergies of  this  southern  rebirth  will  overflow,  or  be  met  with 
like  expression,  in  many  another  land,  especially  in  the 
North  where  the  slower  life  will  take  it  up  at  a  later  time, 
but  will  keep  it  the  more  surely.  Here  is  a  fire  of  new  en- 
ergy that  shall  not  be  lightly  quenched.  Here  is  a  light 
that  shall  yet  lighten  the  whole  world.  Here  is  an  inspira- 


THE  RENAISSANCE  187 

tion  that  shall  quicken  the  whole  race.  Here  are  life  and 
growth  and  beauty  and  hope — all  that  the  world  can  want 
of  promise,  but  containing  much,  also,  that  the  world  little 
suspects  in  the  way  of  individual  and  social  problems  and 
realizations. 

Yet  here  is  the  mightiest  task  of  the  ages  ahead  of  this 
age.  It  was  a  tremendous  accomplishment  to  build  the 
structure  of  the  Middle  Ages  which  should  house  the  ma- 
jestic spirit  of  medievalism.  But  here  is  the  task  of  build- 
ing a  world  which  shall  be  forever  open  to  the  light,  for- 
ever advancing  with  the  new  day,  forever  hopeful  of  un- 
realized experiences.  It  will  be  not  a  finished  world  hous- 
ing a  perfect  system  and  ideal,  but  a  living  and  growing 
world,  the  home  of  a  living  and  growing  ideal.  It  will 
take  all  the  deepest  hopes  of  the  ages,  wrought  out  through 
political,  social,  industrial,  and  religious  struggles,  to  make 
this  ideal  root  itself  deep  in  the  profoundest  meanings  of 
life ;  it  will  take  all  the  contacts  and  conflicts  of  the  social 
ages  to  save  it  from  superficiality;  it  will  take  all  the  un- 
foreseen developments  of  all  the  sciences  to  give  it  place  in 
the  world  of  accepted  intelligence.  And  age  by  age  will 
the  race  despair  of  its  realization  and  seek  to  retreat  into 
the  old  sureties  of  medievalism,  or  into  some  modified  as- 
pects of  that  old  system,  making  itself  believe  that  it  has 
found  a  nobler  refuge.  Democracy,  liberty,  freedom  of 
thinking,  access  to  the  uncontrolled  sources  of  truth — all 
are  involved;  and  in  this  struggle  for  unrealizable  ideals 
men  will  often,  in  the  words  of  Gilbert  Murray,  "lose  their 
nerve."  Yet  not  permanently  nor  for  long.  That  which 
was  begun  in  the  Renaissance  as  a  sort  of  romantic  holiday 
of  the  spirit  has  become  the  world's  most  serious  and  un- 
ending task,  the  struggle  for  democracy  whose  price  is  eter- 
nal vigilance.  In  this  struggle  education,  the  application 


188  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  intelligence  in  constructive  ways,  is  central.  And  we 
must  see  more  fully  now  the  educational  significance  and 
outcome  of  these  profound  experiences. 

But  before  we  take  up  the  educational  significances  of 
these  phases  of  the  Renaissance  we  must  turn  to  a  general 
survey  along  a  number  of  lines  of  the  ways  in  which  this 
spirit  of  the  new  age  worked  itself  out  in  the  modern 
world.  These  lines  of  survey  will  give  us  the  needed  back- 
ground for  the  discussion  of  the  educational  developments 
of  the  period  since  the  Renaissance. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

BIRTH-THROES  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD 

THE  Renaissance  was  after  all  little  more  than  a  great 
resurgence  of  old  repressed  phases  of  human  feeling  and 
emotion.  This  rebirth  was  most  important,  but  mostly  as 
a  prelude  to  other  more  exacting  developments.  For  hu- 
manity is  something  more  than  feeling  and  emotion.  In- 
deed, feelings  and  emotions  must  come  to  be  something 
other  than  themselves  if  they  are  not  to  be  blown  away  by 
some  cold  wind  out  of  the  past.  They  must  find  their  true 
meaning  in  the  wider  and  more  permanent  phases  of  hu- 
man life.  They  must  penetrate  into  the  world  of  institu- 
tions and  social  attitudes.  They  must  help  to  remake  the 
conventional  social  and  intellectual  attitudes. 

Buried  under  more  than  a  thousand  years  of  historical 
accumulation  that  freer  world  of  feeling  and  hope  and 
achievement  came  to  life  but  slowly.  The  first  outburst 
of  the  feelings  was  refreshingly  sudden.  But  the  com- 
plete realization  of  this  promise  was  the  slow  task  of  the 
centuries.  The  old  religious  institutions  must  be  made  to 
feel  these  reconstructive  forces,  and  must  come  to  a  new 
expression.  The  old  scholastic  intellect  must  be  shaken 
out  of  its  routines  and  catch  step  with  the  feelings  of  the 
new  world.  The  old  political  absolutisms  must  be  de- 
stroyed and  the  world  must  have  a  "new  birth  of  free- 
dom." The  old  feudal  tyrannies  in  industry  must  be 
abolished  and  the  age  of  free  contract  must  come  in.  The 
whole  modern  period  is  a  period  of  "bringing  to  birth." 

189 


190  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

We  must  take  time  here  to  note  four  phases  of  these 
"birth-throes  of  the  modern  world." 

A.    RELIGIOUS   REBIRTH:    THE  REFORMATION 

Relation  of  the  Reformation  to  the  Renaissance. — The 

Renaissance  brought  the  promise  and  to  a  large  extent  the 
reality  of  a  new  emotional  freedom  to  the  race.  Men's 
fears  could  no  longer  be  controlled  by  the  threats  of  death 
and  punishment  in  another  world;  the  race  escaped  from 
this  degradation  of  life  and  began  to  look  about  for  other 
avenues  of  action  and  other  phases  of  freedom.  The  whole 
religious  life  was  most  closely  bound  up  in  the  old  me- 
dieval system;  and  the  realization  of  freedom  in  the  inner 
world  of  poetry  and  beauty  found  its  first  possibility  of  ad- 
vance in  the  effort  to  make  the  religious  experience  a  life  of 
the  same  complete  freedom.  The  logic  of  the  Middle  Ages 
had  worked  for  a  fixed  and  unified  type  of  life  and  expe- 
rience ;  the  emotional  overflow  of  the  Renaissance  had  found 
exquisite  pleasure  in  multiplicity  and  variety  of  types; 
the  Reformation  opens  the  way  to  a  great  diversity  and 
variety  of  types  in  the  religious  field.  The  Reformation 
appears  in  the  North,  because  of  the  different  interests  of 
the  people  there.  In  the  South  of  Europe  religion  was 
something  of  an  esthetic  affair,  a  sort  of  adornment  of  the 
life.  The  new  birth  was  therefore  esthetic,  rather  than 
ethical.  In  the  North,  among  the  Teutonic  peoples,  religion 
was  an  ethical  concern,  a  matter  of  most  fundamental  sig- 
nificance. Hence  the  primary  revolt  in  the  North  was  the 
religious  one. 

Primary  Nature  of  the  Reformation. — The  Reformation 
was  another  resurgence  of  primitive  life  from  its  original 
sources.  The  Middle  Ages  had  taught  that  men  live  by  in- 
stitutional relationships;  that  is  to  say,  an  individual  has 
no  real  existence  apart  from  his  membership  in  the  institu- 


THE  REFORMATION  191 

tions  of  the  world.  Hence  outside  the  church  individuals 
had  no  ultimate  significance,  no  worth,  no  goodness.  ' '  The 
good  man  has  become  good  through  his  partaking  of  the 
goodness  that  is  in  the  Church."  But  it  was  the  primary 
doctrine  of  the  Reformation,  of  Luther,  that  ''The  good 
man  shall  live  by  his  own  faith";  that  is  to  say,  "There 
is  goodness  which  is  not  in  any  institution,  which  is  ante- 
cedent to  all  institutions.  All  men  have  access  to  this  Good- 
ness, and  they  can  live  without  the  Church. ' '  In  its  purest 
form  this  is,  of  course,  the  statement  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity come  to  life  again.  It  denies  that  institutional 
membership  is  the  assurance  of  the  goodness  of  the  indi- 
vidual. It  even  asserts  that  institutions  themselves  need 
to  be  saved  from  their  stagnation  and  inertia  and  corrup- 
tions. In  its  original  form  it  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that 
institutions  must  answer  at  the  bar  of  individual  judgment 
for  their  right  to  control  the  individual.  It  asserts  that 
religion  is  not  something  given  to  men  from  a  great  store- 
house, like  Plato 's  ' '  Heaven  of  Reality ' ' ;  rather  religion  is 
something  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of  man,  requiring  the 
experiences  of  life  to  call  it  forth,  to  give  it  room.  At  any 
rate,  Luther  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  his  religious 
nature  and  his  religious  destiny  are  both  safe,  even  though 
he  cuts  himself  off  from  the  authorized  channel  of  supply. 
Indeed  he  rather  asserts  that  both  these  values  are  safer 
outside  the  church  than  inside  it,  under  existing  condi- 
tions. 

The  Dilemma  of  Protestantism. — Luther  did  not  fully 
see,  though  before  he  died  he  felt  it  acutely  enough,  the 
terrible  dilemma  into  which  the  Reformation  plunged  the 
religious  man.  That  dilemma  is  as  follows:  The  medie- 
val church  had  provided  universal  standards  of  doctrine, 
emotion,  and  conduct  for  its  members.  There  was  no  need 
of  intelligence,  of  course,  on  the  part  of  the  member.  Im- 


192  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

plicit  obedience  was  all  that  was  required  of  him,  and  if  he 
made  mistakes  through  ignorance,  these  could  be  com- 
pounded with  the  authorities.  But  when  the  individual 
steps  out  upon  his  own  faith,  his  own  religious  nature,  his 
own  goodness,  he  finds  himself  in  a  world  of  individual  un- 
certainties. The  full  implication  of  this  individual  right  of 
judgment  leads  to  complete  destruction  of  all  set  standards ; 
we  are  back  in  the  days  of  the  Sophists,  where  one  man's 
opinion  is  just  as  good  as  another's.  What  shall  be  done? 
The  authority  of  the  church,  of  the  papacy,  is  overthrown ; 
shall  every  man  become  his  own  all-sufficient  authority? 

On  this  question  Luther  himself  recanted.  If  we  admit 
that  every  man  shall  become  his  own  authority,  the  only 
escape  from  the  pitfall  of  the  Sophists  is  in  the  develop- 
ment of  reason  in  every  individual,  the  proposal  of  Socrates. 
Luther  had  at  first  found  it  possible  to  accept  this  authority 
of  reason,  calling  it  "something  divine";  but  when  he  real- 
ized how  that  involved  the  right  of  every  ignorant,  undis- 
ciplined individual  to  set  up  his  own  opinions  as  having 
full  authority  with  the  learned  conclusions  of  men  who  had 
actually  spent  years  in  getting  to  the  heart  of  a  matter,  he 
came  to  the  sad  conclusion  that  "the  more  subtle  and  acute 
is  reason,  the  more  poisonous  a  beast  it  is."  There  was 
left,  therefore,  for  Luther  and  men  like  himself, — men  who 
had  thrown  over  the  authority  of  the  church,  yet  who  could 
not  accept  the  final  authority  of  reason, — nothing  but  the 
authority  of  the  Bible.  The  Bible  becomes  the  "all-suf- 
ficient rule  of  faith  and  practice." 

But  this  but  carries  the  dilemma  back  one  step  further. 
The  Bible  itself  is  open  to  various  interpretations,  not  to 
say  various  translations.  Who  shall  determine  the  author- 
itative version  and  meaning?  Shall  we  have  an  author- 
i/ed  body  of  leaders  who  will  declare  to  us  the  safe  and 
sure  rules?  Then  we  are  back  in  the  bondage  of  external 


THE  REFORMATION  193 

authority  once  more;  we  should  have  done  well  to  remain 
inside  that  great  historic  church  whose  authority  has  the 
weight  of  tradition  back  of  it,  whose  decisions  are  based  on 
a  thousand  years  of  precedent ! 

Is  there  any  real  stopping-place  for  the  protestant  before 
he  comes  to  the  recognition  of  reason  as  the  final  authority 
for  the  individual?  Are  not  all  other  stopping-places  un- 
safe, insecure,  dangerous  to  his  moral  and  intellectual  in- 
tegrity? Such  questions  as  these  must  be  asked,  because 
democracy  is  involved  in  the  progress  of  a  religion  that 
shall  dare  to  be  as  free  as  life  itself.  The  whole  movement 
of  the  modern  world  is  toward  freedom.  Religious  ener- 
gies ought  to  open  the  way  for  this  onward  movement,  just 
as  in  the  Reformation  religious  interests  and  impulses  car- 
ried the  Renaissance  over  into  the  actualities  of  life. 

The  Fate  of  Protestantism. — Protestantism  was  origin- 
ally built  on  the  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual 
conscience.  Narrow  dogmatism  was  its  immediate  outcome. 
Logically,  the  authority  of  the  Bible  is  exactly  the  same  as 
the  authority  of  the  pope ;  it  is  an  imposed  external  author- 
ity attempting  to  control  life  and  belief  and  conduct.  But 
psychologically  it  is  different;  for  while  the  authority  of 
the  pope  holds  the  adherents  of  that  authority  together  in 
one  fixed  communion,  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  working 
through  many  individual  interpretations,  divides  the  Prot- 
estant world  up  into  many  diverse,  antagonistic,  bickering, 
even  bitter,  sects,  each  claiming  to  be  the  truest  exponent 
of  the  actual  teachings  of  the  sacred  scripture.  In  fact, 
the  history  of  Protestantism  for  two  hundred  years  after 
Luther  shows  that  it  was  little  if  any  more  tolerant  of  in- 
dividual conscience  than  was  Catholicism.  Calvin's  treat- 
ment of  the  young  Doctor  Servetus  in  Geneva  is  an  illus- 
tration of  what  the  intelligent  Protestant  could  do  to  pre- 
serve the  faith  from  hurt  by  the  free  individual. 


194  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

It  is  just  the  persistence  of  the  old  folkway  attitude. 
The  human  mind  tears  itself  free  from  an  old  institution 
whose  arbitrary  authority  it  can  no  longer  endure,  but  it 
does  not  tear  itself  free  from  institutionalism.  It  proceeds 
to  construct  a  new  institution  for  its  own  refuge,  and  then 
all  the  old  institutional  sanctities  gather  around  this  new 
structure.  From  within  the  old  structure  the  ideals  of  in- 
dependence of  individual  thought,  individual  responsibility 
in  conduct,  free  life  on  the  basis  of  reason,  had  all  seemed 
the  revelation  of  a  divine  new  order.  Rebellion  from  the 
old  brings  freedom  to  realize  the  new.  The  new  is  con- 
structed, but  the  rebel  under  the  old  system  has  now  become 
the  center  of  authority  under  the  new  order,  and  he  sub- 
mits to  the  individual  disagreement  of  his  underlings  with 
just  as  little  grace  as  was  manifested  toward  himself  under 
the  old  system.  The  Pilgrims  in  America  are  standard  ex- 
amples of  this  folkway  tendency. 

Protestantism,  in  the  sense  which  Luther  first  gave  it, 
cannot  exist  without  freedom  of  intelligence,  genuine  lib- 
erty of  the  individual  reason.  Free  religion  can  only  find 
itself  at  home  in  the  world  of  free  science.  But  when  Eras- 
mus wrote  of  the  tendency  of  the  times,  "Wherever  Luth- 
eranism  rules,  there  the  sciences  are  neglected,"  he  wrote 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  that  fundamental  Protestant- 
ism which  was  the  first  hope  of  the  Reformation. 

The  Results  of  the  Reformation. — Three  main  types  of 
life  emerge  from  the  Reformation  period;  or  at  least  the 
suggestion  of  three  types.  There  is  first  the  Catholic  type 
which,  reorganized,  pared  of  some  of  its  excesses,  and  re- 
constituted in  the  counter-reformation,  came  forth  to  con- 
tinue in  large  measure  the  presentation  to  the  world  of  that 
majestic  and  final  interpretation  of  life,  social  ideal,  and 
education  which  had  been  worked  out  under  the  dominance 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  This  still-powerful  bearer  of  tradi- 


THE  REFORMATION  195 

tion  of  the  Middle  Ages  represents  the  great  conservative 
interpretation  and  organization  of  life.  Holding  a  more 
consistent  position  than  orthodox  Protestantism  holds,  it 
makes  powerful  appeal  to  all  who  feel  the  struggle  of  the 
world  too  great  for  them ;  it  offers  retreat  for  multitudes  of 
men  and  women  who  want  assurance  and  certainty  of  doc- 
trine ;  and  it  promises  to  remain  one  of  the  abiding  powers 
in  the  education  of  the  race  and  in  the  organization  of  the 
people — just  as  long,  at  least,  as  there  are  those  who  demand 
a  world  of  fixed  meanings  within  which  to  live. 

The  second  of  these  types  which  emerged  from  the  Refor- 
mation may  be  called  the  Protestant  type.  The  Protestant 
has  had  much  to  do  with  the  course  of  history  since  the 
Reformation.  He  has  occupied  an  anomalous  position  and 
has  helped  to  make  these  centuries  of  history  bloody  and 
difficult.  Some  things  he  has  been  willing  to  leave  to  the 
determination  of  reason ;  other  things  he  has  stood  for  with 
all  the  intolerance  of  a  primitive  bigot.  To  be  sure,  Prot- 
estants range  all  the  way  from  those  who  are  scarcely  to 
be  distinguished  from  Catholics  to  those  who  claim  to  be 
absolutely  liberated  from  the  tyranny  of  ecclesiastical  rule. 
Socially,  the  Protestant  has  been  a  constructive  force  in 
modern  history.  Logically,  however,  he  has  occupied  an 
impossible  position.  He  has  been  neither  bound  nor  free. 
Perhaps  for  that  very  reason  he  has  been  able  to  accom- 
plish much.  He  has  fought  for  freedom  with  all  the  terri- 
ble enthusiasm  which  moves  other  men  to  fight  for  an 
eternal  dogma.  He  has  won  freedom, — within  limits  set 
by  his  own  desires, — and  he  has,  in  turn,  denied  the  right 
to  liberty  to  all  who  have  disagreed  with  him.  He  has 
been  at  once  the  most  bitter  foe  of  old  orthodoxies  and  the 
uncompromising  champion  of  new  orthodoxies.  He  repre- 
sents in  striking  fashion  the  description  of  the  member 
of  the  folkways  set  forth  in  a  former  chapter.  Each  sue- 


196  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

cessive  reconstruction  of  a  world  of  habit  supersedes  all 
previous  constructions.  It  satisfies;  it  becomes  identified 
with  the  world  itself.  It  is  not  merely  the  last  formulation 
of  the  world;  it  is  the  world.  Hence  the  standards  of 
action,  conduct,  and  belief  found  therein  are  all  final  stand- 
ards, and  since  the  member  of  the  group  lives  by  them  (at 
least  he  fancies  he  does) ,  he  attempts  to  apply  them  to  all 
other  individuals,  or  at  least  to  all  who  would  join  his 
group. 

The  third  type  of  life  that  emerged  from  the  Reforma- 
tion period  may  be  called  the  secular.  This  is,  of  course, 
not  new;  but  from  the  Reformation  forward  the  secular 
type  comes  to  assume  a  new  significance  and  importance. 
Its  affiliations  are  with  the  old  Greek  ideal  of  a  free  and 
balanced  life ;  it  found  a  certain  renewal  in  the  saner  side 
of  the  Renaissance.  And  since  the  Reformation  this  type 
has  found  fullest  expression  in,  and  given  fullest  support 
to,  the  modern  movements  in  science,  political  and  social 
reform,  and  kindred  efforts  to  make  this  world  a  worthy 
place  for  man's  living.  This  secular  interest  has  not  been 
anti-religious,  but  for  the  most  part  it  has  been  anti-sec- 
tarian and  anti-dogmatic.  Sometimes  it  has  been  accused 
of  being  atheistic;  mostly  it  has  professed  to  be  agnostic. 
Its  religion  has  been  of  a  natural  sort;  its  beliefs  have 
grown  out  of  the  advances  of  science;  its  interests  have 
been  human,  rather  than  other-worldly.  But  a  good  deal 
of  modern  progress  may  be  set  down  to  its  account. 

The  Reformation  was  not  a  simple  incident  in  the  his- 
tory of  humanity.  It  was,  in  its  beginnings,  a  profoundly 
disturbing  revolution  which  undertook  to  do  too  much  at 
one  time.  It  dug  up  the  soil  and  showed  the  roots  of  hu- 
man aspiration  and  necessity  underneath,  and  then  at- 
tempted to  restore  the  old  sods.  That  was  impossible. 
Since  then  all  sorts  of  curious  growths  have  been  sprouting 


THE  REFORMATION  197 

up,  some  good,  some  indifferent,  some  evil,  but  all  have  been 
experiments  in  the  search  for  the  understanding  of  human 
nature.  The  great  pity  is  that  these  have  not  been  looked 
upon  as  experiments,  to  be  made  and  tested  and  judged, 
and  then  kept  or  discarded  as  the  results  approve.  Men 
cling  to  their  modern  superstitions  as  tenaciously  as  ever 
the  primitive  man  hoarded  his  fetishes. 

But  there  was  implicit  in  the  Reformation  a  doctrine  of 
human  experience  which  is  being  realized  in  modern  sci- 
ence and  democracy :  the  freedom  of  the  human  spirit  and 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  access  to  the  sources  of  truth. 
The  working  out  of  this  fine  ideal  into  a  genuine  program 
of  education  lies  still  in  the  future.  The  modern  world 
has  dallied  with  it  and  wished  for  it,  but  never  really 
dared  to  attempt  it  in  fullness  of  will.  It  is  the  largest  task 
of  the  present  moment.  Science  is,  on  the  whole,  ready  for 
it,  as  we  shall  see;  democracy,  that  is,  political  democracy, 
is  not  quite  sure  about  it;  religion,  whether  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  is  mostly  afraid  of  it.  It  means  the  realization 
of  a  full  social  and  industrial  democracy,  which  is  a  fasci- 
nating and  at  the  same  time  an  appalling  ideal.  Its  fate  is 
held  in  the  secrets  of  the  future. 

Other  phases  of  this  problem  must  engage  us  now, 
though  eventually  we  shall  come  to  the  story  of  the  educa- 
tional program  that  stretches  from  the  Reformation  to  the 
present  time,  and  which  gives  intimations  of  what  the  fu- 
ture of  education  is  to  be. 

B.    INTELLECTUAL  REBIRTH:   THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE 

It  is  a  hopeless  task,  of  course,  to  attempt  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  development  of  science  through  the  modern 
period  in  a  brief  chapter.  That  will  not  be  undertaken. 
But  the  fact  of  the  rise  of  the  attitude  of  science,  as  over 
against  the  attitude  of  scholastic  learning,  is  probably  the 


198  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

most  important  fact  in  the  whole  range  of  modern  experi- 
ence ;  and  that  must  be  clearly  set  forth. 

Medieval  Science. — We  have  already  seen  that  the  master 
mind  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  was  Aristotle.  Not  all  the 
sins  of  that  period  should  be  laid  at  his  door,  however,  for 
in  his  own  time  he  opened  to  the  world  great  areas  of  the 
unexplored,  and  at  times,  at  least,  he  came  close  to  the  bor- 
derland of  actual  experimental  science.  But  he  came  down 
upon  the  Middle  Ages  as  the  exponent  of  the  closed  system 
of  medieval  thinking;  his  logic  set  the  absolute  limits  to 
human  endeavor  and  closed  all  avenues  of  progress.  He 
turned  back  the  intellectual  life  of  the  world  upon  itself; 
and  since  the  intellect  cannot  be  endlessly  busy  with  rou- 
tine things,  because,  if  there  is  no  worthy  task  upon  which 
intelligence  may  expend  its  energies,  it  must  find  some 
unworthy  object,  Aristotle  may  be  justly  accused  of  being 
largely  responsible  for  the  absurdities  of  much  medieval 
science.  That  is  to  say,  there  is  no  real  room  in  an  abso- 
lute system  for  science ;  hence  intelligence  must  either  go  to 
sleep  in  such  a  system  or  seek  illicit  pleasures  outside  the 
system.  Some  indication  of  these  illicit  pleasures  may  be 
found  in  the  developments  of  alchemy  and  astrology  in  the 
later  Middle  Ages.  Of  course  these  pseudo-sciences  were 
very  old,  dating  from  old  f olkway  conceptions  of  the  race ; 
and  nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  essential  "f olkway" 
nature  of  the  medieval  world  than  the  welcome  which  old 
folkway  conceptions  continuously  received  in  that  period. 

Roger  Bacon  declared  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  the 
works  of  Aristotle  burned,  because  there  was  nothing  in 
them  of  value  for  the  new  age  and  they  were  the  cause  of 
endless  errors  and  ignorance.  One  lasting  limitation  of 
the  Greek  view  of  the  world  was  their  belief  that  thinking 
itself  brings  us  to  the  truth ;  and  Aristotle,  despite  his  own 
attempts  to  observe  the  world  of  nature,  really  brings  us 


THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE  199 

back  to  a  nature  woven  mostly  of  thinking,  of  which,  indeed, 
thinking  is  the  real  key.  Scholasticism  grows  out  of  and 
lives  upon  this  conception.  The  scholastics  are,  as  Francis 
Bacon  observed,  like  spiders  that  spin  endless  webs  out  of 
their  own  bodies.  These  endless  webs  of  scholastic  thought 
wrapped  the  human  mind  about.  The  tasks  of  escaping 
from  them,  of  tearing  them  to  pieces,  of  facing  the  world 
with  fresh  minds,  and  of  working  out  the  new  methods  of 
scientific  procedure  are  all  in  the  future.  These  tasks  will 
be  many-sided.  They  will  involve  new  psychologies,  new 
logics,  new  methods  of  investigation  covering  many  ranges 
of  experience,  new  conceptions  of  the  nature  of  the  world 
and  of  human  experience,  and  new  philosophies.  Human 
nature,  human  credulity,  will  be  subjected  to  many  shocks 
and  many  strains.  The  unbelievable  will  become  the  com- 
monplace ;  the  unpredictable  will  continually  happen.  The 
unknown  will  be  transformed ;  it  will  no  longer  be  the  realm 
of  certain  terrors,  but  will  become  the  limitless  promise  of 
beneficent  gifts  to  humanity  which  the  brave  may  search  out 
and  bring  to  the  uses  of  life.  Uncompromising  intelli- 
gence, slowly  organizing  its  forces  for  the  great  task,  will 
transform  the  borderland  of  human  living  from  a  realm 
of  certain  evil  forces  into  a  land  of  uncertainly  endless  pos- 
sibilities of  human  good. 

The  New  Universe. — First  must  come  the  larger  trans- 
formation of  the  structure  of  the  universe  itself.  The  old, 
earth-centered  universe  of  the  Ptolemaic  cosmology  gives 
place,  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  to  the  new 
sun-centered  universe  of  Copernicus.  It  is  a  type  of  the 
whole  modern  movement  of  thought.  But  the  new  system 
of  Copernicus  was  not  easily  accepted.  Not  only  was  it  re- 
pugnant to  the  minds  of  most  men  who  were  steeped  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  church, — which  held  the  earth  to  be  the  most 
important  of  the  worlds  of  space, — but  even  leading  scien- 


200  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tists  did  not  agree, — Tycho  Brahe,  one  of  the  really  great 
astronomers  of  all  ages,  being  one  of  these.  But  Kepler 
appeared  vnth  his  "Laws  of  Planetary  Motion";  and  later 
Galileo,  discovering  the  uses  of  the  telescope,  watched  the 
movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  helped  to  bring  con- 
viction to  the  minds  of  men,  although  he  brought  ecclesi- 
astical condemnation  upon  himself  by  thus  demonstrating 
the  unbelievable  and  the  undesirable. 

The  New  Physics. — Galileo  was  also  responsible  for  lay- 
ing the  foundation  of  the  new  science  of  physics,  which 
should  be  able  to  deal  with  matter  and  motion  within  this 
new  universe  in  intelligible  terms.  Along  with  his  name  we 
must  place  those  of  William  Gilbert,  who  by  his  work  in 
magnetism  and  other  forms  of  electrical  energy  helped  to 
lay  the  foundations  of  all  modern  developments  in  that 
field;  Torricelli,  who  demonstrated  the  fact  that  air  has 
weight  and  who  invented  the  barometer ;  Robert  Boyle,  who 
carried  the  whole  question  of  the  pressure  of  gases  further ; 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who  first  showed  that  light  was  not  a 
simple  phenomenon,  and  who  set  forth  the  first  comprehen- 
sive statement  of  the  law  of  universal  gravitation ;  and  per- 
haps Laplace,  who  gave  the  first  modern  expression  of  the 
origin  of  the  solar  system. 

The  New  Biology. — Aristotle's  four  fundamental  sub- 
stances and  four  "essences"  could  not  satisfy  the  new  age; 
but  the  transition  to  a  new  outlook  was  difficult  here,  more 
difficult  than  in  physics,  because  it  dealt  with  concerns  that 
were  nearer  to  the  intimate  life  of  men.  The  transition 
period  is  a  period  of  magic,  of  slowly  disappearing  miracles, 
and  of  the  gradual  appearance  of  conceptions  that  are  dis- 
tinctly modern.  Paracelsus  is  representative  of  this  transi- 
tion era.  He  studied  living  forms  at  first  hand,  and  he 
threw  suspicion  upon  the  medieval  scholars.  But  he  did 
not  escape  from  the  magical  conceptions  of  the  times. 


THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE  201 

Harvey  (1578-1657),  on  the  other  hand,  does  almost  com- 
pletely escape;  he  demonstrates  the  principle  of  the  circu- 
lation of  the  blood.  From  this  time  forward  biological 
studies  come  gradually  out  into  the  clear  light  of  modern 
science. 

We  have  not  space  here  to  go  into  the  full  discussion 
of  the  extension  of  human  knowledge  in  the  great  centuries 
of  discovery  and  exploration.  Geographically,  the  earth 
was  made  over  quite  as  completely  as  was  the  universe. 
At  the  same  time  the  discovery  of  new  races  in  hitherto 
unknown  lands  made  old  theories  of  humanity  untenable; 
the  beginnings  of  anthropology  must  soon  appear.  In  the 
course  of  the  years  studies  in  biology  become  comparative, 
i.e.,  comparisons  appear  between  various  animal  forms  and 
a  certain  likeness  of  structure  and  function  becomes  ap- 
parent. In  the  rocks  of  the  earth  fossils  exist;  the  expla- 
nations given  by  Aristotle  no  longer  satisfy  nor  do  those  of 
the  medieval  romancers.  A  new  explanation  will  soon  ap- 
pear ;  the  earth  itself  has  had  a  long,  eventful,  even  a  tragic 
history.  The  likeness  of  man  to  lower  forms,  at  least  in  an- 
atomical ways,  will  attract  attention.  Many  lines  of  evi- 
dence, all  converging  toward  a  common  end,  will  gradu- 
ally force  home  upon  the  race  the  conception  that  man 
was  not  "created,"  as  old  folkway  traditions  all  relate. 
Man  is  not  a  stranger  on  the  earth,  put  into  it  after  all 
other  processes  were  finished;  he  is  of  the  earth  itself, 
wrought  of  the  self-same  processes,  though  doubtless  more 
highly  wrought;  his  reality  is  the  reality  of  the  universe 
itself.  In  short,  a  theory  of  evolution  is  proposed. 
Henceforth  all  constructive  science  will  lie  within  this  gen- 
eral theory.  The  world  itself  will  cease  to  be  fixed  fact; 
it  will  become  process.  Science  will  little  by  little  give  up 
its  fixed  substances  and  its  vital  essences,  and  by  stating 
the  world,  including  life  itself,  in  terms  of  the  most  simple 


202  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

elements  of  mechanics,  understanding  will  take  the  place 
of  superstition  and  control  will  take  the  place  of  chance 
and  fate.  Thus  actual  approach  to  the  data  of  experience 
brings  the  world  to  a  complete  rejection  of  the  general  me- 
dieval construction  of  the  world;  and  in  place  of  that  con- 
struction modern  scientific  thinking  has  given  us  a  world 
of  simple  elements,  organized  and  interrelated  in  recogniz- 
able ways,  in  the  midst  of  which  human  aspirations  seem  to 
have  a  surer  ground  and  human  hopes  a  more  complete 
control  of  their  own  essential  destinies.  Having  in  this 
brief  fashion  faced  the  intellectual  movement  on  one  side, 
we  must  now  face  a  corresponding  line  of  interrelated  de- 
velopment. 

The  Philosophical  Movement  Through  the  Modern 
Period. — We  have  noted  how  on  the  scientific  side  little  by 
little  the  work  of  the  single  individual  scientist  assumes  the 
right  to  criticise  and  deny  the  whole  accumulated  mass  of 
tradition  from  the  past.  Scientific  investigation  does  not 
depend  upon  a  consensus  of  opinion,  but  only  upon  the 
verification  of  observed  fact.  The  experience  of  the  indi- 
vidual scientist  becomes  the  fertile  field  in  which  modern 
knowledge  grows.  Psychologically  and  philosophically, 
therefore,  the  world  must  be  remade  to  meet  the  new  facts. 
This  first  takes  the  form  of  complete  ' '  enlightenment. ' '  All 
old  dogmas  shall  be  criticised  out  of  existence,  whether  in 
religion,  in  politics,  in  ethics,  or  in  education ;  nothing  shall 
remain  but  the  clear  ideas  that  cannot  be  doubted.  All 
else  shall  be  swept  out  of  the  household  of  the  new  human- 
ity upon  the  dust  heaps  of  the  past ;  the  individual  reason 
shall  be  the  final  court  of  appeal  as  to  the  reality  of  any 
particular  of  experience. 

This  is  the  "enlightenment,"  an  age  which  repeats  in 
some  ways  the  experience  of  the  age  of  the  Sophists  in 
Greece.  But  reason  outreasoned  itself  and  became  utterly 


THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE  203 

artificial,  resulting  in  the  destruction  of  most  of  the  graces 
of  life,  giving  to  religion  the  superficialities  of  the  deism 
of  the  eighteenth  century  and  to  poetry  the  pedantic  hard- 
ness of  Pope  and  Dryden. 

Of  course  such  a  tendency  could  not  be  permanent.  Hu- 
manity cannot  long  endure  the  denial  of  its  best  elements. 
"Romanticism"  brought  back  the  warmth  of  the  inner  life 
of  the  emotions.  Rousseau  denied  the  right  of  institutional- 
ized reason  to  prey  upon  the  feelings  of  men.  Man  comes 
back  to  a  belief  in  himself.  The  French  Revolution  is,  from 
one  point  of  view,  but  the  full  expression  of  this  funda- 
mental restoration  of  man's  faith  in  his  own  human  worth. 

But  the  whole  problem  of  the  significance  of  the  intel- 
lectual is  thus  obscured.  In  the  "enlightenment"  the  in- 
tellect triumphs  and  life  becomes  scarcely  worth  while;  in 
the  "romantic"  movement  the  worth  of  human  living  re- 
turns, but  the  intellect  is  subordinated  to  the  feelings. 
Then  Kant  comes  in  to  reconstruct  the  whole  problem.  He 
carries  out  the  revolutionary  work  of  the  past  three  cen- 
turies. He  brings  the  "Copernican  revolution"  into  the 
world  of  thought.  The  natural  world  of  our  experience  is, 
itself,  the  construction  of  the  mind ;  the  mind  is  creator  and 
lawgiver  of  the  world.  The  mind  is  not  molded  by  things ; 
things  conform  to  the  mind  in  the  process  of  becoming 
known.  What  we  know  depends  upon  the  mind 's  powers  of 
knowing,  and  we  know  what  we  know  according  to  the 
methods  of  the  mind  that  is  engaged  in  the  knowing. 

The  mind  thus  becomes  the  creative  agent  in  the  making 
of  the  world  of  experience.  It  creates  both  truth  and  false- 
hood ;  therefore  it  needs  to  learn  how  to  create  truly.  Thus 
the  problem  becomes  one  once  more  with  the  problem  of 
science,  and  science  and  philosophy  join  hands  in  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  fundamental  theory  of  evolution  which  is  to 
displace  the  old  theory  of  creation  and  give  a  genuine  place 


204  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

for  thinking  in  the  growth  of  a  world  whose  psychology  is 
the  psychology  of  the  creative,  active  experience. 

Some  Special  Problems. — Thus  that  "inner  life,"  lost 
through  the  Middle  Ages  and  emerging  fitfully  in  the  Ren- 
aissance and  the  Reformation,  comes  now  to  have  some 
real  security.  Conduct  belongs  to  the  moral  personality, 
not  to  institutions  and  dogmas.  All  the  outer  world,  if  it  is 
to  have  worth  for  the  individual,  must  be  founded  upon  and 
grow  out  of  the  experience  of  the  individual,  giving  room 
for  the  expression  of  his  will.  External  law  must  make 
room  for  free  moral  activity ;  the  ' '  Laws  of  Nature ' '  are  but 
the  regulations  which  man's  creative  reason  imposes  upon 
nature.  Man  rises  above  the  world  of  nature  and  begins 
to  control  his  own  destiny. 

To  be  sure,  this  is  a  result  that  is  temporary ;  science  and 
philosophy  react  upon  each  other  all  through  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Science  does  not  always  know  its  own  con- 
sistency, does  not  always  follow  its  own  logic.  There  are 
conflicts  with  old  orthodoxies  of  all  sorts.  Religion  refuses 
to  yield  one  jot  of  its  old  prerogatives  and  seems  to  be 
slowly  dispossessed.  Science  would  reduce  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  world,  including  mind,  to  simple  mechanisms. 
The  mind  refuses  thus  to  commit  suicide.  But  through  it 
all,  thinking  goes  on,  observation  advances,  data  accumu- 
late, and  hypotheses  are  advanced,  criticised,  and  discarded. 
The  world  is  electric  with  advancing  thought  and  far  out 
upon  the  frontiers  of  science  the  lights  of  the  pioneers  shine 
cheerily  through  the  dark.  It  is  an  age  worth  living  in. 
History  is  not  ended.  We  are  in  the  very  midst  of  history, 
not  the  folkway  life,  but  the  life  of  movement,  of  change. 
The  evolutionary  process  is  going  on  all  about  us,  the 
search  for  higher  adaptations,  for  the  life  that  is  good. 
And  science,  intelligence,  is  central  in  that  search  for  the 
good  life. 


THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE  205 

The  problem  of  science  is  slowly  defined.  What  is  the 
place  of  intelligence  in  human  living?  Is  it  the  working 
out  of  a  formal  "body  of  systematized  truth"  ?  Sometimes 
the  older  "sciences"  seem  to  take  that  point  of  view  as 
they  stand  idly  by  and  lend  no  helping  hand  in  the  strug- 
gle of  the  younger  sciences  to  find  secure  footing  in  the 
mazes  of  old  methods.  But  on  the  whole,  science  comes 
slowly  to  the  acceptance  of  a  really  great  task,  to  wit,  ' '  the 
working  out  of  the  conditions  under  which  a  good  life  is 
possible  to  man, ' '  as  Paulsen  states  it.  The  world  is  richer 
in  materials  than  ever  before.  Is  it  richer  in  living  ?  Na- 
ture, society,  the  new  universes,  the  new  realizations  of 
social  order,  the  utterly  new  methods  and  materials  of  liv- 
ing— do  these  make  human  life  more  worth  while  ?  All  the 
old  cultures  of  the  world,  too,  have  been  round  about  the 
modern  period  in  increasing  fullness;  but  these  have  not 
satisfied,  for  the  modern  period  could  not  return  into  the 
folkways.  In  the  main  the  face  of  humanity  has  been  to- 
ward the  future  all  through  the  modern  period;  and  when 
we  consider  the  amount  of  work  that  has  been  accomplished 
since  Bacon,  we  must  admit  that  the  age  has  been  wonder- 
fully active. 

Yet  other  tasks  remain  to  be  done.  Science  must  get  on 
with  its  work.  The  life  of  the  individual  must  be  com- 
pletely emancipated  along  all  constructive  lines.  He  must 
become  free  in  three  great  directions,  with  that  freedom 
which  the  truth  alone  can  give : 

(a)  In  his  capacity  to  work  creatively,  joyfully,  and  in- 
telligently in  his  chosen  field ; 

(b)  In  his  capacity  to  share  with  others  the  products  of 
his  work  and  theirs,  and  the  common  responsibilities  of 
common  living ; 

(c)  In  his  capacity  to  know.     It  was  the  fate  of  the  mil- 
lions of  the  Middle  Ages  that  they  found  themselves  always 


206  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

"on  the  outside."  They  did  not  belong;  they  did  not 
know  the  secrets  of  the  chosen.  But  the  science  and  the 
democracy  of  the  modern  world  are  declaring  that  all  men 
must  have  the  chance  to  be  "on  the  inside"  with  whatever 
democracy  is  accomplishing  or  dreaming  and  hoping. 
These  great  freedoms  in  action,  feeling,  and  knowing  are 
but  the  necessary  and  logical  implications  of  the  promises 
that  have  emerged  in  all  the  "rebirths"  of  the  modern 
world,  in  Renaissance,  Reformation,  revolution,  and  en- 
lightenment. 

The  world  is  becoming  immeasurably  complicated  along 
all  these  lines,  complicated  with  details  of  information  and 
with  new  scientific  enterprises  and  technics.  Intelligence 
is  prying  into  endless  numbers  of  dark  crannies  of  experi- 
ence. We  are  in  danger  of  being  lost  under  the  accumu- 
lations of  experiences.  We  must  learn  the  lesson  taught  by 
Socrates :  nothing  but  whole  ideas  growing  out  of  real  ex- 
periences, tested  by  actual  fires  of  experience  and  purified 
through  vital  contacts  with  the  world 's  doings,  can  take  the 
place  of  the  "half -thoughts"  of  our  pseudo-science  and  our 
ephemeral  philosophies.  In  an  age  like  this,  when  social 
order  seems  to  be  lost  in  world-anarchy,  "the  one  power 
that  can  save,  can  heal,  can  fortify,  is  clear  and  intelligent 
thought.  Opinion,  that  is,  real  thinking,  is  no  longer  a 
parlor  game,  a  matter  of  dinner-table  conversation;  it  is  a 
relentless  necessity  if  we  are  to  keep  the  flag  of  sanity 
flying  above  this  tortured  world." 

The  chance  to  think,  the  materials  with  which  to  think, 
the  stimulus  to  think — these  must  become  the  possession  of 
every  individual,  else  he  will  fall  between  fragments  of  the 
world  and  be  lost.  This  is  especially  the  task  of  education 
in  a  democracy.  How  shall  men  be  helped  to  think  ?  How 
shall  they  be  stimulated  to  thinking?  How  shall  they  be 
secured  in  the  materials  with  which  to  think  sanely  and 


THE  RISE  OF  SCIENCE  207 

constructively?    Let  the  schools   answer  these  questions. 

Life  still  grows  up  in  the  midst  of  common  habit,  as  in  the 
primitive  world,  and  always  must  so  grow.  But  the  world 
of  men  and  affairs  is  now  no  longer  the  small  perceptual 
world  of  the  primitive  group,  with  its  limited  horizons  and 
its  meanings  clearly  open  before  us.  The  modern  world 
continuously  demands  a  broader  intelligence,  a  freer  moral 
energy,  a  quicker  civic  sense,  a  greater  industrial  adapta- 
bility, a  more  thorough  appreciation  of  the  spiritual  values 
that  make  humanity.  There  is  but  one  escape  from  these 
demands:  complete  surrender  to  some  fixed  routine,  the 
sinking  of  all  personality  in  the  mechanics  of  industry,  thus 
proving  the  charge  that  "never  before  in  history  has  it 
been  so  easy  for  a  simpleton  to  live." 

Education  must  face  these  new  and  larger  demands, 
which  grow  larger  continually.  The  history  of  education 
in  the  modern  period  is  sketched  against  the  background  of 
these  great  revolutionary  and  reformatory  protests  against 
the  iron-clad  systems  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Education  must 
face  the  conflicts  of  the  past  with  itself  in  the  new  order. 
It  looks  forward  either  to  a  complete  return  to  the  institu- 
tionalism  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  to  the  complete  freedom  of 
some  as  yet  unrealized  social  democracy  which  shall  learn 
how  to  use  science  as  its  means  of  living.  The  long  years 
of  struggle  lie  between  us  and  that  goal.  Indeed,  the  goal 
of  democracy  is  not  a  goal  at  all;  it  is  a  continuous  alert- 
ness, a  constant  adaptability,  an  eternal  vigilance.  It  is 
this  unescapable  fact  that  has  made  almost  all  nations  in 
the  past  lose  their  nerve  and  give  up  the  struggle.  Will 
America  also  lose  her  nerve  ? 

The  great  educational  program  that  has  been  rolling  in 
upon  us  throughout  this  modern  period  and  emerging  into 
the  present  may  be  stated  somewhat  as  follows :  How  shall 
these  great  but  still  incomplete  resources  of  knowledge, 


208  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

these  great  ideals  of  a  constantly  moving  social  order,  these 
institutional  treasures  inherited  out  of  the  long  past, — 
our  understanding  of  experience  and  all  other  aspects  of 
our  modern  world-life — be  wrought  into  a  working  program 
for  the  continuous  realization  of  the  larger  good  in  human 
living  and  the  continuous  re-creation  of  that  larger  good  in 
the  continuous  generations  ? 

c.  POLITICAL  REBIRTH:  REVOLUTION 

The  political  structure  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  in  har- 
mony with  the  religious  ideal  and  the  ecclesiastical  struc- 
ture. That  structure  may  be  described  as  follows : 

The  whole  is  a  continuous  series  of  ascending  steps  or  grades, 
drawing  nearer  and  nearer  to  Life;  a  kind  of  ladder  down  which 
life  may  be  passed  from  level  to  level;  each  level  has  to  receive 
from  one  above  and  pass  on  to  one  below.  In  this  scheme  each 
part  has  its  own  special  value  and  its  own  special  work  so  long 
as  it  remains  within  the  structure  of  the  whole;  it  lapses  into 
nothingness  as  soon  as  it  makes  itself  separate.  This  conception 
of  life  took  historical  shape  not  only  in  the  hierarchy  of  the 
church,  but  also  in  the  feudal  system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in 
which  every  power  vested  in  any  individual  was  regarded  as  a 
loan  from  the  grade  above.1 

This  describes  the  feudal  political  system  and  the  hier- 
archy of  the  church.  Down  each  of  these,  life,  the  right  to 
live,  the  hope  of  life  in  the  future,  the  commonest  necessi- 
ties of  life,  were  passed  from  the  head  of  the  church  or  the 
head  of  the  state  to  the  lower  levels  of  society.  This  was 
the  very  climax  of  aristocratic  society,  with  the  holy  sanc- 
tions of  the  church  to  give  it  permanence  and  control  over 
the  minds  of  men. 

This  was  the  "larger  folkway  of  the  Middle  Ages"  based 
upon  a  return  to  the  habitual  attitudes  of  the  primitive 
world,  but  organized  now  with  all  the  strength  of  Roman 

lEucken:     "Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,"  p.  343. 


POLITICAL  EEYOLUTION  209 

political  institution,  Greek  logic,  and  authoritative  revela- 
tion from  heaven  to  defend  it  from  criticism  or  attack.  It 
is  as  primitive  a  conception  as  that  revealed  in  the  old  story 
of  Cain.  Within  the  group  an  individual  is  safe,  protected, 
with  some  outlook  toward  the  future ;  outside  the  group  he 
is  nothing  at  all,  an  ' ' outside-the-law, "  "a  fugitive  and  a 
wanderer  in  the  earth, ' '  one  whom  anyone  may  freely  slay, 
since  there  is  no  one  to  avenge  his  death.  All  good,  all  sig- 
nificance, is  handed  down  from  above,  from  the  group,  from 
the  head  of  the  group,  from  the  super-head.  Cut  off  from 
this  source  and  channel  of  life,  the  individual  becomes  ut- 
terly useless  and  insignificant. 

The  Dissent  from  this  View. — The  modern  world  has 
radically  dissented  and  departed  from  this  view.  The 
Socratic  doctrine  had  been  different ;  primitive  Christianity 
had  suggested  something  other;  the  Teutonic  barbarians 
had  developed  a  different  attitude  in  their  original  insti- 
tutions. But  Socrates  was  lost  in  the  Platonic  speculation ; 
primitive  Christianity  lost  its  original  democracy  in  the 
growth  of  the  doctrine  of  the  transcendence  of  God,  which 
called  for  a  special  class  of  priests  who  had  special  access 
to  him  and  who  made  up  the  hierarchy;  and  the  Teutonic 
simplicity  was  overwhelmed  in  the  magnificence  of  Koman 
institutions,  even  when  in  decay. 

But  there  has  developed  in  the  course  of  the  modern 
period  a  rather  clear  conception  that  is  now  striving  to  take 
the  place  of  that  other  point  of  view.  According  to  this 
democratic  ideal,  as  we  may  call  it,  instead  of  being  a  mere 
fragment  in  the  world,  the  individual  now  finds  himself  in 
a  position  of  growing  opportunity  and  responsibility;  he 
may  be  himself  a  whole  world,  a  kind  of  center  of  reality 
from  which  he  may  indefinitely  establish  ever  wider  rela- 
tionship with  others.  To  be  sure,  the  development  of  this 
ideal  has  not  destroyed  the  existence  of  the  other.  The 


210  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

medieval  attitude  has  not  been  broken  down.  The  demo- 
cratic attitude  is  nowhere  fully  accepted,  for  it  is  so  revo- 
lutionary in  its  implication  as  to  frighten  men,  and  it  in- 
volves so  much  of  general  reconstruction  of  the  world  that 
the  task  can  be  said  to  be  little  more  than  begun.  But 
everywhere  in  civilization  the  medieval  attitude  has  been 
"toned  down,"  and  in  many  lands  it  is  all  but  completely 
shattered.  Even  the  present  great  war  tends  more  and 
more  toward  the  discrediting  of  medieval  attitudes. 

But  the  struggle  for  democracy  involves  conflicts  not 
alone  in  the  political  field.  It  must  be  fought  out  in  all 
institutions  and  in  every  minutest  aspect  of  our  social  and 
personal  living — in  industry,  in  religion,  in  social  relation- 
ships, in  morality,  in  the  home,  in  actual  legal  attitudes, 
but  especially  in  the  schools  and  in  education.  The 
struggle  for  democracy  is  an  expression  of  the  determina- 
tion of  the  modern  world  to  remake  the  whole  range  of 
social  relationships  under  every  possible  aspect,  and  to 
construct  a  world  in  which  every  individual  shall  in  truth 
became  a  "sanctuary  in  which  life  is  immediately  present 
in  all  its  infinite  greatness. ' '  And  in  this  general  struggle 
the  political  phase  is  a  most  important  part  of  the  problem. 

Incidents  in  the  Long  Struggle. — The  Renaissance  con- 
tributed the  energy  of  freed  emotions ;  the  Reformation  was 
in  large  part  a  revolt  of  the  oppressed  peasantry  against 
the  conditions  of  industry;  the  growth  of  knowledge  grad- 
ually brought  disillusionment  as  to  the  realities  and  terrors 
of  medievalism.  Hence  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  saw  the  dissolution  of  the  traditional  doctrine  of 
the  supernatural  foundations  of  the  state  and  the  growth  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  natural  foundations  of  political  institu- 
tions. Although  such  an  expression  of  absolutism  as  "I 
am  the  State"  might  be  uttered  by  a  French  king  in  the 
seventeenth  century;  although  the  doctrine  of  "the  divine 


POLITICAL  REVOLUTION  211 

right  of  kings ' '  lived  on  into  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  even  in  England;  yet  feeling,  knowledge,  and  ac- 
tion were  all  uniting  for  the  decisive  contest. 

The  English  Revolution  began  shortly  after  1603  with 
the  accession  of  the  Stuarts  to  the  throne.  Cromwell's  wars 
for  liberty,  the  downfall  of  Charles  the  First,  the  Com- 
monwealth, the  final  overthrow  of  the  Stuarts  in  1689,  and 
the  adoption  of  the  "Bill  of  Rights" — these  events  show 
the  progress  that  was  made  in  a  single  century  against  the 
medieval  structure  of  absolute  political  control  in  one 
2ountry. 

The  American  Revolution  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
French  Revolution  a  few  years  later,  and  the  various  revo- 
lutions of  the  nineteenth  century  in  Europe  and  in  Latin 
America,  are  phases  in  this  world-movement.  The  English 
"Bill  of  Rights,"  the  American  "Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence," the  "Contrat  Sociale"  of  Rousseau  (though 
grossly  overdone),  were  and  are  all  monuments  on  the  road 
of  progress.  These  events  all  indicate  the  actual  surging 
forward  of  the  masses  of  men  toward  the  eventual  full 
participation  in  government  and  in  the  political  determina- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  common  welfare. 

Significance  of  this  Forward  Movement. — It  is  plainly 
seen  that  this  forward  movement  of  the  masses  of  men  in- 
volves the  right  of  all  men  of  all  classes  to  pass  judgment 
upon  all  sorts  of  questions.  These  questions  may  be  inci- 
dental, unimportant,  local ;  but  they  may  also  be  funda- 
mental, supremely  important,  and  involving  universal 
issues  such  as  the  very  destiny  of  the  state  or  the  whole 
progress  of  civilization.  On  these  larger  issues  the  masses 
of  men,  kept  in  absolute  ignorance  through  scores  of  cen- 
turies and  denied  any  personal  share  in  the  problems  and 
responsibilities  of  government,  are  found  to  have  little  or  no 
real  comprehension  of  the  issues  involved,  the  values  at 


212  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

stake,  or  the  long  struggles  of  history  by  which  these  values 
have  been  so  far  achieved.  On  the  other  hand,  and  this 
cannot  be  too  much  emphasized,  the  long  struggles  of  his- 
tory, interpreted  under  the  distorted  doctrines  of  medi- 
evalism, gave  to  the  ruling  classes  and  groups  a  false  esti- 
mate of  their  own  grasp  upon  these  great  questions.  Back 
of  the  proud  boast,  ' '  I  am  the  State, ' '  lies  implicit  the  pro- 
found assertion,  "There  is  absolutely  nothing  important 
about  the  political  problems  of  the  day  of  which  I  am  igno- 
rant"; which  is,  of  course,  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  absurd 
and  precarious  a  foundation  upon  which  to  build  a  political 
system  as  is  the  ignorance  of  the  submerged  peasant.  As  a 
matter  of  historic  fact,  there  is  more  hope  for  the  world  in 
the  undisguised  ignorance  of  the  peasant  who  may  learn 
than  there  is  in  the  boundless  assumption  of  the  aristocrat 
who  already  knows  all  and  who  feels  it  his  largest  duty  to 
set  himself  firmly  against  the  introduction  of  any  new 
element  into  the  political  order.  But  all  these  things  sim- 
ply mean  that  this  forward  movement  finds  its  most  tre- 
mendous problem  in  the  development  of  an  intelligence 
equal  to  its  great  social  task,  and  therefore  the  develop- 
ment and  organization  of  an  education  that  shall  be  as  com- 
pletely democratic  as  the  spirit  of  this  forward  movement 
itself.  This  is  something  which  has,  even  yet,  been  barely 
attempted  anywhere  in  the  world. 

The  Inner  Development  of  Democracy. — The  develop- 
ment of  democracy  involves  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the 
political  nature  of  the  individual  and  his  acceptance  of  the 
social  and  civic  task  as  his  own  personal  task.  Aristotle 
had  declared  that  "man  is  a  political  animal,"  meaning 
that  man  really  finds  his  life  only  in  real  relationships 
with  his  fellows.  But  absolutism,  as  we  have  seen,  denied 
to  men  the  chance  to  share  in  civic  interests,  thus  depriving 
them  of  the  means  of  developing  their  political  natures. 


POLITICAL  REVOLUTION  213 

Religious  institutions  supported  political  absolutism  in  this 
denial.  It  is  too  long  a  story  to  tell  at  this  time — how 
men  have  in  a  measure  won  their  political  freedom,  i.e.,  the 
chance  to  develop  their  inner  and  civic  natures.  One  illus- 
tration of  how  bitterly  the  conflict  was  waged,  how  real  it 
was  to  the  men  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  eighteenth, 
and  nineteenth  centuries,  may  be  given  here  as  we  pass  on. 
In  this  illustration  from  Holbach's  "System  of  Nature," 
nature  stands  for  the  new  tendencies  toward  democracy, 
religion  for  the  absolutism  of  the  Middle  Ages : 

Nature  bids  man  consult  his  reason,  and  take  it  for  his  guide; 
Religion  teaches  him  that  his  reason  is  corrupted,  that  it  is  a 
faithless,  truthless  guide,  implanted  by  a  treacherous  God  to  mis- 
lead his  creatures.  Nature  tells  man  to  seek  light,  to  search  for 
truth;  Religion  enjoins  upon  him  to  examine  nothing,  to  remain 
in  ignorance.  Nature  says  to  man :  "Cherish  glory,  labor  to  win 
esteem,  be  active,  courageous,  industrious";  Religion  says  to  him: 
"Be  humble,  abject,  pusillanimous,  live  in  retreat,  busy  thyself 
in  prayer,  meditation,  devout  rites,  be  useless  to  thyself  and  do 
nothing  for  others."  Nature  says  to  man:  "Thou  art  free,  and 
no  power  on  earth  can  lawfully  strip  thee  of  thy  rights" ;  Religion 
cries  to  him  that  he  is  a  slave  condemned  by  God  to  groan  under 
the  rod  of  God's  representatives.  Let  us  recognize  the  plain 
truth, — that  it  is  these  supernatural  ideas  that  have  obscured 
morality,  corrupted  politics,  hindered  the  advance  of  the  sciences, 
and  extinguished  the  happiness  and  peace  even  in  the  very  heart 
of  man. 

This  quotation  is  not  part  of  an  academic  exercise;  it  is 
one  little  item  in  the  long  argument  by  which  men  con- 
vinced themselves  that  they  were,  and  are,  actually  free. 

This  doctrine  of  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  political 
nature  of  every  normal  individual  finds  its  larger  argument 
in  the  democratic  theory  of  "the  worth  and  dignity  of 
every  human  being  of  moral  capacity."  This  is  the  basis 


214  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  theory  of  self-government,  the  actual  transference 
of  the  center  of  growth  and  authority  to  the  masses,  every 
member  of  which  is  to  share  in  the  responsibilities,  in  the 
goods,  in  the  evils,  in  the  knowledge,  and  in  the  whole 
meaning  of  the  civic  life.  This  will  include,  also,  as  we 
shall  see  in  a  later  chapter,  a  just  share  in  the  economic 
goods.  This  is  the  modern  ideal  of  social  democracy,  and 
therefore  it  ought  to  be,  it  must  be,  the  aim  of  all  makers 
of  our  civic  life. 

The  Democratic  Ideal  of  Education. — The  fuller  state- 
ment of  this  will  occupy  us  in  Part  V,  but  a  brief  discus- 
sion of  the  education  needed  in  a  modern  social  democracy 
is  in  place  here.  Democracy  intends  the  actual  release  of 
all  the  energies  of  every  individual  for  the  enrichment  of 
the  personal  and  social  life  of  all.  Under  Greek  institu- 
tions the  existence  of  slavery  freed  the  few  thousands  of 
11  citizens"  for  the  development  of  the  noblest  and  most 
intelligent  life  the  world  has  ever  known.  The  aristocratic 
social  order  of  the  Middle  Ages  released  some  few  favored 
individuals  for  intelligence  and  service  to  the  common 
good.  But  the  essential  inhumanity  of  both  systems  deter- 
mined the  ultimate  elimination  of  both.  Democracy  to- 
day implies  the  growth  of  a  social  order  that  shall  fight  to 
realize  not  some  historical  estimate  of  human  good,  but  the 
intelligent,  the  reasoned,  the  scientific  estimates  and  calcu- 
lations of  goods  that  are  good  for  all  in  ever-widening  in- 
clusiveness. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  many  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the 
realization  of  this  ideal.  Among  these  is  the  imperfection 
of  our  sciences  of  human  good,  as  yet.  Moreover,  old  aris- 
tocratic attitudes,  implying  that  the  good  of  the  few  in- 
sures the  proper  good  of  the  many,  do  not  readily  give  way 
to  democratic  demands.  Inherited  differences  of  "class" 
and  wealth;  natural  differences  in  physical  and  mental 


POLITICAL  REVOLUTION  215 

equipment,  interpreted  as  proving  the  existence  of  a  "nat- 
ural aristocracy";  and  primitive  traits  of  human  nature 
which  are  excused  by  being  classed  under  such  terms  as 
"ambition,"  "success,"  "self-made  men,"  and  the  like,  tend 
to  blind  men  to  the  real  significance  of  the  problem.  The 
actual  realization  of  democracy  must  wait  for  the  fuller 
understanding  of  what  democracy  really  is  in  its  social  and 
psychological  aspects.  The  educational  program  of  democ- 
racy depends  upon  this  same  more  complete  development, 
with  the  definition  of  the  educational  problem.  At  present 
we  are  largely  satisfied  with  the  fact  of  ' '  universal  compul- 
sory school  attendance " ;  we  have  scarcely  begun  to  realize 
what  democracy  must  do  to  make  sure  its  own  ideals  are 
taking  the  place  of  the  antiquated  ideals  of  the  autocratic 
ages. 

The  average  man  has  but  a  pitiful  share  in  the  culture 
that  the  schools  are  supposed  to  offer.  Even  the  graduates 
of  our  universities  have  scarcely  touched  the  deeper  cur- 
rents of  the  world's  moral  and  spiritual  aspirations,  by 
means  of  which,  through  thousands  of  years  of  brutal  sup- 
pression, the  masses  of  men  have  kept  alive  their  funda- 
mental spiritual  impulses.  "Education"  rarely  touches 
this  inner  life,  though  occasionally  the  rare  teacher  comes 
upon  it.  Yet  democracy  is  to  rise  out  of  the  culture  of  this 
inner  life  of  humanity,  not  out  of  the  repetition  of  the  stale 
externalities  of  the  ages.  Without  the  culture  of  these 
fundamental  impulses  of  man's  inner  life  there  can  be  no 
hope  for  a  democratic  social  order. 

Occasionally  a  prophet  of  the  Christian  religion  catches 
a  glimpse  of  this  same  inner  life  of  the  spirit  and  renews 
faith  in  the  earth.  But  that  is  rather  rare.  Christianity 
has  been  taught  among  men  for  near  two  thousand  years, 
yet  somehow  its  inner  meaning  has  not  yet  taken  deep  hold 
upon  human  life,  its  teachings  have  not  become  the  world 's 


216  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

real  convictions.  Our  noblest  human  impulses  are  not  al- 
ways accepted  by  its  representatives  as  worthy  of  trust; 
our  human  social  order  is  not  accepted  as  the  task  of  its 
transforming  mission ;  and  our  human  hunger  for  a  life  in 
which  instinct  and  emotion  shall  become  one  with  moral 
ideal  and  religious  passion  is  looked  upon  as  of  the  evil. 
Christianity  became  profoundly  disconnected  from  life  in 
its  medieval  period,  and  it  has  not  yet  recovered  from  that 
deadening  experience.  It  is  still  too  much  an  official  re- 
ligion, conserved  in  formal  institutions  and  handed  down 
to  the  needy  world  from  an  other-worldly  source.  It  is 
still  too  much  afraid  of  science,  afraid  of  humanity,  afraid 
of  the  democratic  aspirations  of  the  age ! 

The  larger  need  of  our  democracy  in  this  world-crisis  is 
found  in  the  widening  of  its  program  to  include  all  aspects 
of  our  living, — industrial,  social,  moral,  educational,  and 
religious;  in  the  conviction  that  such  a  widening  of  life  is 
desirable  and  that  the  task  of  our  political  organization  is 
to  assure  us  its  realization.  This  will  involve  a  new  ex- 
pression of  the  old  passion  for  freedom,  since  it  seems 
certain  that  these  larger  democratic  aspirations  can  be 
achieved  only  through  the  continuance  of  the  same  actual, 
desperate,  tragic,  emotional,  and  intellectual  struggles  as 
those  which  have  marked  the  most  earnest  periods  of  the 
past  four  centuries.  Democracy  is  not  a  system  that  can 
be  set  up  and  left  to  run  its  own  course.  Eternal  vigi- 
lance is  the  price  of  democracy.  But  vigilance  of  this  sort 
depends  upon  a  disciplined  mental  life.  Now  discipline 
may  kill  mental  life  and  initiative ;  it  has  practically  always 
done  this  under  any  form  of  autocratic  control.  But  dis- 
cipline may  also  fit  the  mind  for  the  widest  initiative  and 
for  the  most  complete  inventiveness ;  this  is  the  sort  of  dis- 
cipline democracy  demands.  Therefore  the  education  de- 
manded by  a  democratic  social  order  must  be  completely 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  217 

liberating  in  all  its  effects.  Its  materials,  its  institutional 
controls,  its  methods,  its  administrative  attitudes,  its  im- 
plicit psychology — these  must  all  be  of  the  democratic 
spirit.  And  our  democratic  ideals  of  government  must  be 
broadened  until  they  can  permit  such  a  development  of 
our  educational  efforts.  For  the  chief  obstacle  to-day  to 
the  growth  of  our  democracy  is  the  undemocratic  character 
of  most  of  our  education.  If  the  world  is  ever  to  be  "made 
safe  for  democracy,"  that  process  must  penetrate  into  the 
very  fiber  of  our  educational  procedure. 

D.    ECONOMIC   REBIRTH:   THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION 

We  have  seen  how  industry  was  carried  on  and  the  eco- 
nomic necessities  of  men  were  met  in  the  life  of  primitive 
peoples.  We  have  come  upon  social  conditions  within 
which  hard  and  fast  lines  have  been  drawn  between  the 
working  groups  and  the  leisure  classes;  we  have,  indeed, 
seen  some  of  those  conditions  developing.  We  have  seen 
that  such  distinctions  seemed  to  be  an  essential  part  of  the 
organization  of  life  in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  period  of 
fixed  orders  in  all  lines  of  human  relationship.  We  have 
noted  the  "medieval  dilemma" — the  difficulty  of  a  life  that 
rather  despised  the  physical  means  of  living  through  its 
extreme  interest  in  the  means  of  higher  living,  yet,  being 
compelled  to  use  those  physical  means,  must  do  penance  to 
escape  from  the  penalties  incurred  by  such  use. 

We  have  seen  the  miseries  of  the  poor  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
miseries  mitigated  by  the  glories  of  the  great  and  the  hope 
of  heaven.  But  we  have  also  seen  how  the  rise  of  cities 
made  room  for  the  gradual  growth  of  a  great  middle  class 
of  freemen,  neither  serfs  nor  aristocrats,  with  whom  intelli- 
gence might  find  a  home,  and  who  should  become  the  leaders 
in  gilds  of  free  workers  and  the  hope  of  the  development  of 
free  institutions  generally. 


218  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Intermediate  Stages. — It  is  a  long  story  from  the  dis- 
integration of  the  feudal  system  of  industry  to  the  modern 
system,  far  too  long  to  be  undertaken  here.  It  leads 
through  the  growth  of  bodies  of  freed  laborers  in  towns 
and  cities,  with  their  developments  of  gilds  and  their  sys- 
tems of  apprenticeship ;  the  gradual  development  of  systems 
of  handicrafts,  carried  on  in  simple  fashion  by  groups  of 
workers  in  more  or  less  isolated  localities  and  with  the  use 
of  rather  simple  tools;  the  slow  growth  of  the  power  of 
control  over  new  sources  of  energy,  such  as  water-power 
which  could  be  turned  to  use,  thus  facilitating  production ; 
until  finally  we  come  to  the  dawn  of  the  era  of  invention, 
with  its  wonderful  steam-engine  and  its  ever  more  com- 
plete elaboration  of  tools,  with  its  eventual  expansion  into 
the  age  of  machinery  which  brings  about  the  real  industrial 
revolution. 

All  through  this  modern  period  there  had  been  a  consid- 
erable increase  of  capital ;  that  is  to  say,  social  productivity 
was  developing  more  rapidly  and  a  larger  available  surplus 
was  in  existence.  The  rise  of  international  commerce,  with 
the  larger  exploration  of  the  world;  the  discovery  of  gold 
and  silver  mines  in  America ;  the  draining  off  of  all  surplus 
productivity  to  the  centers  of  business  exploitation — all 
these  factors  contributed  to  the  development  of  two  "free" 
classes  to  take  the  place  of  the  unfree  classes  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  place  of  the  aristocrats  of  the  earlier  period,  we 
now  have  the  capitalist;  in  place  of  the  serf,  we  have  the 
wage-earners,  soon  to  be  lumped  in  the  mass  under  the  gen- 
eral term  of  "proletariat."  Capitalism  is  a  long  growth, 
and  it  has  its  full  development  only  after  the  industrial 
revolution. 

The  Industrial  Revolution. — "The  labor  of  the  peasant 
was  incessant;  his  food,  his  clothing,  and  his  habitation 
were  of  the  rudest  and  the  poorest.  He  was  ignorant  and 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  219 

superstitious,  and  his  oppression  made  him  sullen.  He  was 
the  butt  for  the  wit  of  the  noble  classes  and  the  courtly 
poets,  and  the  name  "villain"  (villein)  has  been  handed 
down  by  them  to  us  as  the  synonym  for  all  that  is  base. ' ' x 

Under  the  gild  system  of  industry  all  journeymen  nat- 
urally looked  forward  to  the  time  when  they  should  become 
masters.  But  as  the  modern  employer  came  into  existence, 
the  medieval  journeyman  ceased  to  exist,  and  in  his  place 
came  the  modern  workingman,  or  at  least  his  forerunner. 
These  workingrnen  were  shut  out  from  the  gilds  of  the 
employers;  they  thereupon  began  to  form  gilds  of  their 
own,  which  were  the  antecedents  of  modern  trade-unions. 
"From  that  time  onward,  capitalists  and  laborers  are  sep- 
arated, and  the  history  of  labor  ceases  to  be  the  history  of 
capital."2 

But  these  earlier  trade-gilds  are  not  the  historical  fore- 
bears of  modern  trade-unions.  Those  earlier  unions  all 
disappeared  in  the  social  developments  by  which  larger- 
scale  industries  came  into  being  and  in  the  midst  of  which 
all  the  old  gild  regulations  were  broken  down,  so  that  the 
employer  was  free  to  hire  whom  he  could  at  such  wages  as 
he  must,  and  the  employee  was  free  to  sell  his  labor-power 
where  he  could  at  such  wages  as  he  could  command.  The 
age  of  free  contract  brought  an  end  to  all  artificial  regula- 
tions of  labor  and  wages.  "Human  labor  became  a  com- 
modity the  value  of  which  is  fixed  by  the  same  laws  as  gov- 
ern the  value  of  any  other  merchandise."  3 

The  development  of  machinery  as  the  actual  means  of 
productivity  tremendously  stimulated  this  movement  to- 
ward free  contract.  The  steam-engine  made  manufactur- 
ing independent  of  natural  conditions,  such  as  rivers,  water- 

i Harding:  "Essentials  in  Medieval  and  Modern  History,"  p.  179. 
2  Cede:     "Principles  of  Political  Economy"  (second  American  edi- 
tion) ;  p.  409. 

s  Cede:  op.  tit.;  p.  491. 


220  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

falls,  etc.,  in  large  measure.  Machinery  called  for  large 
numbers  of  laborers,  only  partially  skilled  at  the  best,  in 
the  growing  manufacturing  cities.  This  development  of 
machine-industry  has  been  responsible  for  many  aspects  of 
the  wonderful  expansion  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In- 
deed, the  present  industrial  situation  may  be  set  down  to 
this  revolution  in  industrial  methods. 

But  even  so,  the  whole  tendency  was  not  a  natural  de- 
velopment. In  the  early  decades  of  the  age  of  the  indus- 
trial revolution,  particularly  in  the  closing  decades  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  England  was  very  forehanded  in  aiding 
the  employer  to  maintain  his  death-grip  upon  the  laboring 
classes  by  passing  very  stringent  regulations  against  com- 
binations of  laborers,  making,  for  example,  any  combina- 
tion of  laborers  for  the  purpose  of  asking  for  an  increase 
in  wages  a  criminal  conspiracy  punishable  by  transporta- 
tion beyond  the  seas.  Many  an  honest  but  starving  Eng- 
lish workingman  paid  for  his  temerity  in  asking  for  a  liv- 
ing wage  by  working  in  the  quarries  of  Australia  for  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

The  Industrial  Problem  in  a  Democracy. — Perhaps  the 
most  distressing  period  in  the  history  of  human  labor  is 
that  period  from  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth,  when  men  were  still  bound  by  the 
old  legislative  regulations  and  society  was  bound  by  the 
laissez  faire  conception,  and  before  the  revolt  of  the  mod- 
ern democratic  movement  in  industry  had  begun.  Wage- 
slavery  was  a  real  condition  in  those  days  not  alone  for 
men,  but  for  multitudes  of  women  and  children  as  well.1 

But  since  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  wonderful 
changes  for  the  better  have  been  made.  The  old  obstruct- 
ive laws  have  been  gradually  broken  down.  Workingmen 
have  fought  during  half  a  century  for  the  right  to  organize 

i  Cf.  Mrs.  Browning's  poem,  "The  Cry  of  the  Children." 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  221 

for  the  common  protection  of  their  standards  of  living  and 
for  the  raising  of  those  standards  by  all  constructive  means, 
such  as  education.  The  right  to  organize  has  been  won  in 
all  intelligent  communities  and  has  been  recognized  in  in- 
telligent legislation.  To  be  sure,  here  and  there  a  voice 
may  be  heard  denying  this  right;  but  such  voices  are 
anachronistic.  The  sober  common  sense  of  the  modern 
community  accepts  the  labor-union  as  normal  and  proper. 

Not  only  so,  but  in  practically  all  modern  commonwealths 
distinctive  legislation  in  the  direction  of  protecting  the 
standards  of  living,  the  health  of  the  laborers,  the  moral 
quality  of  the  industrial  situation,  and  many  other  aspects 
of  the  economic  system,  has  been  enacted.  Childhood  is 
slowly  becoming  too  precious  to  be  exploited.  Women  are 
no  longer,  in  most  cases,  permitted  to  be  pitted  against  a 
soulless  machine  for  the  mere  chance  to  earn  a  livelihood. 
Men  are  protected  from  the  ravages  of  machines  and  from 
industrial  diseases  and  overstrains.  Humanity  is  begin- 
ning to  be  regarded  as  of  more  worth  than  mere  profits.1 

To  be  sure,  a  leisure  class  persists  outside  the  tides  of 
productive  industry.  Humanity  is  not  yet  entirely  ra- 
tional. The  tasks  of  education  are  not  all  complete.  In- 
telligence has  not  yet  found  its  way  to  the  heart  of  the 
industrial  problem.  Old  brute  forces  still  persist  in  some 
measure.  The  school  is  far  isolated  from  industry.  Edu- 
cation does  not  make  organic  connection  with  the  whole 
life  of  the  community.  Industry  does  not  play  fully  into 
and  criticize  our  educational  systems.  Apprenticeship 
systems  of  education  have  gone;  the  machine  has  no  place 

i  Recent  American  legislation  (the  so-called  "Clayton  Act")  has 
officially  declared  that  human  labor  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a 
commodity,  to  be  bought  and  sold  in  the  open  market.  Instead, 
the  basis  of  wages  must  be  found  in  the  maintenance  of  a  genuine 
standard  of  living.  The  old  doctrine  of  the  immutability  of  economic 
laws  has  gone  from  the  enlightened  part  of  the  community. 


222  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

for  them.  Education,  losing  contact  with  industry,  be- 
comes bookish,  remote,  lifeless.  Industry,  losing  the  quick- 
ening touch  of  intelligence,  becomes  still  more  mechanical, 
inhuman. 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  the  process  of  making  industry 
completely  democratic  by  making  its  processes  completely 
intelligent  and  its  modes  of  organization  completely 
human.  Nothing  short  of  this  will  suffice.  Industry  must 
become  the  servant  of  the  human  need.  Neither  machinery 
nor  profit  may  be  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way  of  human 
living,  and  education  must  have  a  large  share  in  bringing 
about  this  desirable  result.  Future  developments  in  eco- 
nomic directions  are  altogether  problematic.  But  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  bald  assertion  of  the  doctrine  of  "economic 
determinism"  no  longer  carries  conviction  to  intelligent 
members  of  the  democratic  commonwealth.  Men  and 
women  and  children  are  not  condemned  by  immutable  law 
to  the  degradations  of  poverty,  but  by  mutable  ignorance 
and  the  sheer  survival  of  old  and  base  forms  of  industrial 
organization.  In  our  discussion  of  the  intellectual  revolu- 
tion, we  concluded  that  it  is  the  task  of  science  to  work 
out  the  conditions  under  which  a  good  life  is  possible. 
That  task  includes  the  economic  problem.  Modern  social 
intelligence  is  engaged  in  that  task.  The  destruction  of 
old  conventions  by  the  pressures  of  war-operations  fur- 
thers this  phase  of  the  task.  Men  must  be  economically 
free,  else  political  democracy  hides  under  a  fine  name  a 
ghastly  jest.  Democratic  education  must  work  at  this 
task.  The  hopes  of  our  political  democracy  must  become 
the  possession  of  us  all.  The  promises  of  our  intellectual 
revolution  must  be  made  available  to  all.  The  larger 
liberties  of  the  religious  revolution  must  come  to  all.  But 
beyond  all  these  things,  and  giving  substance  and  body 
to  these  fine  ideals,  the  actualities  of  economic  liberty  must 


223 

6e  realized  by  all.  For  these  reasons,  the  modern  age  has 
determined  that  all  men  shall  have  a  chance  to  know  the 
truth, — not  the  medieval  truth  that  the  afflictions  of  this 
world  will  be  recompensed  in  Heaven,  but  the  scientific 
truth  that  there  is  no  reason  (save  our  carelessness  and 
unintelligence)  why  any  one  should  be  deprived  of  the 
real  goods  of  life.  The  world  may  move  slowly  toward 
this  goal  of  truth  and  intelligent  organization.  Education 
may  be  long  on  the  way.  But  the  approach  to  the  goal  is 
certain.  Democracy  demands  it,  and  science  is  learning 
the  way. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

A    SUMMARY:    THE    GENERAL    CHARACTER    OF    THE    MODERN 

WORLD 

THE  history  of  the  four  or  five  centuries  of  the  modern 
era  has  been  wrought  out  of  continuous  struggle  along 
many  lines,  as  we  have  seen;  the  four  or  five  lines  which 
we  have  specifically  noted  do  not  exhaust  the  subject. 
The  fight  to  win  freedom  from  the  folkways  of  the  Middle 
Ages  has  developed  particular  and  peculiar  features  in 
connection  with  every  aspect  of  human  nature;  but  we 
may  not  take  more  time  for  specific  surveys.  We  must 
here  sum  up  and  present  in  a  general  way  the  character- 
istics of  these  struggles  and  the  nature  of  the  modern 
world-spirit,  for  this  spirit  is  the  social  motive  that  makes 
intelligible  the  history  of  education  in  this  same  period. 

Relation  of  the  Modern  World  to  Medievalism. — Medi- 
evalism represents  one  of  the  two  fundamental  modes  of 
interpreting  the  world  and  human  experience.  As  such, 
it  is  probably  the  most  complete  expression  possible  to  the 
human  mind.  It  is  an  effort  to  establish  a  world-folkway 
within  which  all  questions  shall  find  authoritative  answer, 
all  impulses  be  put  to  rest,  and  all  originality  be  turned  to 
the  strengthening  of  the  structure  itself.  It  must  be 
again  confessed  that  great  numbers  of  human  beings,  at 
least  under  historical  and  present  social  and  educational 
conditions,  find  satisfying  refuge  in  some  such  sort  of  folk- 
way  retreat,  refusing  to  battle  with  the  conditions  of  liv- 
ing, declining  to  struggle  with  the  problems  of  the  world, 
permitting  destiny  to  work  its  will  with  them.  Politicians 

224 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD   225 

and  political  conditions  irritate  them,  and  they  are  glad 
to  escape  from  political  responsibilities;  religious  teachers 
lull  them  to  repose,  and  the  ecclesiastical  institutions  take 
care  of  their  spiritual  interests  and  their  eternal  destinies; 
captains  of  industry  pay  them  fixed  wages,  and  the  eco- 
nomic struggle  does  not  concern  them ;  all  the  proper  ques- 
tions of  the  universe  have  been  given  final  answers  in  the 
Bible  or  church  doctrines,  and  science  is  weariness  and 
vexation  of  spirit;  and  the  teachers  they  respect  convey 
to  them  absolute  knowledges,  which  completely  destroy 
any  possible  initiative  that  they  may  once  have  had. 
Medievalism  was  not,  and  is  not,  primarily,  a  system  of 
politics,  religion,  industry,  and  education;  it  is  not  fair,  it 
obscures  the  truth  we  need  to  face,  to  identify  medievalism 
with  any  historic  system.  Medievalism  was,  and  is,  an 
attitude  of  mind,  a  mode  of  interpreting  experience,  a  sys- 
tem of  logic,  an  inner  construction  of  experience  which  may 
or  may  not  develop  a  corresponding  construction  in  the 
world  of  institutions.  But  just  as  long  as  any  individual 
permits  another  individual  or  institution  to  endow  him 
with  his  civic,  economic,  religious,  or  intellectual  possessions, 
and  thus  to  control  his  life  and  destiny,  medievalism  will 
continue  to  exist.  Medievalism  is  life  reduced  to  habit,  con- 
trolled by  custom,  surrounded  by  authoritative  tradition 
from  which  intellectual  control  has  abdicated.  Its  answers 
and  its  activities  must  all  be  of  a  fixed  and  final  type,  so  that 
life  may  be  secure  and  without  disturbance. 

Anselm  presents  the  extreme  intellectual  form  of  this 
attitude  in  his  famous  maxim, ' '  Credo  ut  intellegam, ' '  which 
may  be  interpreted,  "I  bring  my  reason  under  subjection 
to  the  authorized  world-system,  since  in  that  way  alone  can 
I  have  an  orderly  world  of  knowledge,  even  though  that  or- 
derly world  is  the  construction  of  another  mind."  But 
in  the  same  way,  though  of  course  not  so  obviously,  the  same 


226  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ideal  is  expressed  in  economic  terms :  ' '  I  gladly  submit  to 
the  social  order,  since  in  that  way  alone  may  I  have  a 
share  in  the  world's  wealth,  even  if  that  share  be  no  more 
than  a  chance  to  work  for  some  one  else. ' '  A  definite  civic 
attitude  seems  also  present:  "I  submit  to  the  organized 
authority,  because  in  that  way  alone  may  I  find  a  place  in 
the  social  world,  for  the  position  of  even  a  serf  is  better 
than  to  be  an  outcast."  And  finally  the  religious  ideal 
stands  out  vividly:  "I  conform  to  the  doctrines,  since  in 
that  way  alone  I  shall  become  joint-heir  to  the  treasures 
laid  up  for  those  who  are  faithful."  That  is  to  say,  all 
medieval  institutions  existed  in  the  truth  of  the  dogma  of 
Aquinas :  "Real  existence  is  not  in  individual  being,  but  in 
membership  in  an  eternal  Whole."  And  this  is,  of  course, 
of  the  essence  of  the  folkways. 

Now  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  modern  world  must  fight 
consistently  against  such  a  final  construction  of  the  world, 
if  it  is  to  win  to  its  avowed  ideals.  There  is  an  insidious 
danger  here.  Every  forward  movement  holds  within  itself 
the  possibility  of  giving  over  its  active  career  and  of  settling 
down  into  its  final  forms,  i.e.,  developing  its  own  folkways, 
its  own  "Middle  Age,"  and  thus  ceasing  to  care  for  further 
movement.  Indeed,  any  movement  is  capable  of  becoming 
so  completely  satisfied  with  its  own  attainments  and  so  fixed 
in  its  own  accomplishments  as  to  identify  those  accomplish- 
ments with  the  universe  itself,  even  denying  the  existence  of 
anything  beyond  its  own  perceptions  and  setting  up  its  own 
standards  of  orthodoxy  which  make  its  old  professions  of 
progress  seem  like  the  ravings  of  lunacy.  Many  modern 
religious  denominations  are  excellent  examples  of  this  fact. 

But  the  modern  world  has  committed  itself  to  the  cause 
of  democracy,  science,  religious  freedom,  and  industrial  op- 
portunity. Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  any  one  of 
these,  or  all  of  them  put  together.  There  is  no  escape  from 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD   227 

this  vigilance,  save  in  surrendering  to  the  past;  and  that 
means  giving  over  all  that  has  been  gained  and  denying  the 
reality  of  the  experiences  of  the  modern  world,  whether  in 
social  or  individual  living.  This  would  be  the  ending  of 
all  human  hopes.  However  difficult  and  uncertain  the 
way,  the  modern  age  is  true  to  its  inner  self  in  one  respect : 
it  has  put  its  hand  to  the  plow  and  will  not  turn  back! 

The  Ideals  of  the  Modern  World.— But  the  fact  that  the 
modern  world  must  fight  the  essential  spirit  of  the  Middle 
Ages  does  not  mean  that  medievalism  has  no  value  or  signifi- 
cance. As  a  matter  of  fact,  of  course,  the  past  has  profound 
significance  for  the  present  and  the  future.  This  new  age 
is  like  the  Teutonic  barbarian  of  a  thousand  years  ago; 
nay,  it  is  that  Teutonic  barbarian,  now  no  longer  a  simple 
child  of  the  forest,  "fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind,"  but 
strong  manhood  and  disciplined  mind,  with  surplus  energies 
released  in  Renaissance  and  Reformation  and  revolution, 
ready  to  destroy  or  construct,  to  build  or  tear  down,  as  his 
mind  may  be  turned.  These  new  energies  need  further 
discipline  not  for  their  uprooting,  but  for  their  deeper 
strengthening,  in  order  that  they  may  learn  how  to  turn 
their  strength  effectively  upon  that  aspect  of  the  great 
world-task  most  needing  to  be  done.  And  these  old  folk- 
ways of  medievalism,  formed  through  the  long  centuries 
and  firmly  rooted  in  the  lasting  affections  of  men,  should 
be  just  the  instruments  of  this  needed  discipline  of  these 
new  energies  for  the  long  tasks  of  the  growing  future — 
the  digging  out  of  the  unsuspected  resources  of  the  world, 
the  gathering  of  the  materials  of  the  new  and  larger  intel- 
lectual and  moral  existence  of  the  race,  the  combining  these 
materials  organically  in  the  new  and  better  social  and  in- 
dustrial orders,  and  the  realizing  and  expressing  more  fully 
the  unbounded  hopes  of  men. 

To  be  sure,  this  very  process  of  disciplining  these  new 


228  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

energies  of  life  would  have  meant  the  transformation  of  the 
medieval  folkways.  This  process  would  have  brought  to 
the  peoples  new  meanings  for  life,  criticized  away  their 
stagnate  attitudes,  and  given  them  the  ideals  of  the  modern 
world,  the  hope  of  progress,  and  the  spirit  of  science.  That 
would  have  meant  the  virtual  destruction  of  the  folkways ! 
Yes,  but  each  age  must  build  its  own  universe.  The  trouble 
is  that  each  age  insists  upon  bequeathing  its  own  structure, 
unchanged,  to  the  next  generation.  As  if  any  child  can 
gratefully  accept  or  gladly  wear  the  old  clothes  of  its  ances- 
tors !  The  earlier  age  ought  to  use  up  the  materials  of  its 
own  structures  in  giving  its  children  practice  in  building,  so 
that  they,  trained  to  the  task,  may  in  their  own  good  time 
make  the  kind  of  life-structure  that  their  own  needs  and 
ideals  demand. 

In  some  respects  the  revolt  against  medievalism, — that 
fixed  and  permanent  way  of  looking  at  life,  social  order, 
human  nature,  education,  and  human  destiny, — has  been 
too  wholly  emotional,  too  unintelligent.  After  all,  the  un- 
derstructure  of  any  life  is  habit.  Psychologically,  this 
must  be  so.  Correlatively,  the  understructure  of  the 
world's  life  must  be  custom  and  tradition.  The  accomplish- 
ments of  the  world  to  the  time  of  Thomas  Aquinas  were  too 
great  to  be  lightly  considered  or  thrown  away.  These  ac- 
complishments are  conserved  in  that  great  body  of  habit, 
custom,  and  institution  which  is  still  in  almost  undisputed 
possession  of  great  areas  of  society.  The  real  genius  of 
the  modern  world  is  not  expressed  in  wholesale  condemna- 
tions of  the  past;  nor,  indeed,  in  wholesale  acceptation  of 
that  same  past.  If  the  modern  age  has  anything  to  com- 
mend it  above  the  medieval  age,  it  is  found  in  its  method 
of  actual  analysis  of  problems,  including  historical  situa- 
tions. It  is  characteristic  of  half-intelligent  logic  that  it 
insists  upon  clearly  distinguishing  institutions  and  atti- 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD   229 

tudes  which  are  not  clearly  distinguishable.  Inductive  sci- 
ence is  not  to  be  set  over  against  deductive  knowledge,  as  if 
the  two  were  hostile.  The  former  includes  the  latter,  and 
there  can  be  no  true  induction  without  adequate  and  proper 
use  of  the  deductive  methods.  So,  also,  the  modern  age  is 
not  set  over  against  the  Middle  Ages  in  absolute  contrast. 
Rather,  the  modern  period  includes  the  essential  values  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  using  those  values,  building  upon  them, 
and  conserving  them  almost  as  carefully  as  does  the  medie- 
val spirit  itself. 

But  the  modern  age  goes  beyond  the  medieval  age  in 
certain  very  important  particulars.  Holding  to  the  values 
of  the  past  for  critical  and  constructive  purposes,  the  mod- 
ern world  insists  that  the  inner  forces  of  growth  and  life 
can  be  trusted ;  that,  indeed,  in  sharp  conflicts  between  the 
externalities  of  life  and  the  inner  forces  of  growth,  the 
latter  at  times  must  win,  if  life  is  to  be  preserved.  For 
this  reason  the  modern  world  has  set  forth  for  itself  certain 
great,  though  indefinite,  goals,  and  has  developed  for  itself 
certain  constructive,  though  largely  intangible,  ideals.  Over 
against  the  distinctive  medieval  point  of  view,  with  its  be- 
lief that  a  fixed  order  of  knowledge  and  a  fixed  way  of 
looking  at  life  are  necessary  to  education,  we  may  state  the 
informing  spirit  of  the  modern  period  in  the  following 
ways,  all  of  which  sum  up  the  general  doctrine  of  modern 
democracy  and  science  that  the  inner  forces  of  life  and  ex- 
perience can  be  trusted : 

(a)  Psychologically.    Impulses  and  feelings  and  the  sci- 
ence that  grows  out  of  human  living  are  closer  to  reality 
than  are  the  old  intellectualisms,  knowledges,  and  fixed 
modes  of  thought.     This  is  the  real  basis  of  modern  science, 
and  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  modern  hope  in  democracy. 

(b)  Sociologically.     Men  may  be  trusted  to  renew  their 
institutions  in  the  event  of  the  downfall  of  any  old  institu- 


230  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tion,  since  "man  is  a  political  animal,"  as  Aristotle  pointed 
out.  Ordinarily  this  is  thought  to  mean  that  man  must 
be  closely  surrounded  by  authoritative  controls.  But  con- 
trary to  this  ordinary  interpretation  of  that  Aristotelian 
principle,  the  modern  world  takes  it  for  granted  that  insti- 
tutions, including  the  remaking  of  institutions,  are  safe  in 
the  hands  of  men.  Men  need  institutions,  and  whenever 
they  destroy  those  they  have,  they  will  at  once  build  others. 

(c)  Politically.     Normal  human  relationships  are  safer 
foundations  for  the  building  of  the  state  than  are  either  the 
traditional   political  formulations   or   the  doctrines   of   a 
supernatural  order  of  society.    Men,  in  their  stumblings 
after  order,  may  make  grave  mistakes ;  but  they  will  prob- 
ably produce  no  such  fundamental  perversions  of  human 
life  as  have  developed  under  old  supernatural  sanctions. 
The  good  state  will  be,  in  the  long  run,  the  product  of 
man's  bravest  intelligence  at  work  in  the  service  of  his  fin- 
est ideals. 

(d)  Industrially.    "Work  is  a  necessity  of  life,  not  merely 
of  the  economic  life  but  of  the  moral  life  as  well ;  and  men 
can  be  depended  upon  to  share  the  life  of  work  just  in  as 
far  as  their  energies  are  free  to  follow  natural  channels 
and  their  training  has  not  perverted  their  natural  activi- 
ties.    The  good  workmen  make  a  good  social  order. 

(e)  Religiously.     The  good  that  men  achieve  is  their 
own  good, — not  the  good  that  is  given  them  by  some  insti- 
tution.    Institutions  are  the  tools  of  humanity,  not  the 
final  dwelling  for  men.     Good  men  make  the  various  social 
institutions  worth  while;  and  all  institutions  may  rightly 
be  called  in  question,  may  rightly  be  asked  to  answer  at 
the  bar  of  the  individual  conscience.    Human  life  is  a  give 
and  take  between  institutions  and  individuals,  not  a  mere 
give  on  the  part  of  institutions  and  a  mere  take  on  the 
part  of  men. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  MODERN  WORLD   231 

It  may  be  objected  that  no  such  sharp  contrast  between 
the  medieval  and  the  modern  is  quite  fair;  and  that  objec- 
tion may  be  true  of  the  conditions  of  common  life.  But  it 
may  still  be  true  that  the  ideals  of  the  two  periods,  despite 
lack  of  clear  distinction  on  our  part,  are  still  definitely  an- 
tagonistic, if  we  take  them  apart  and  view  them  as  fixed 
ideals  of  life.  If  it  will  not  seem  to  be  too  redundant,  the 
whole  matter  may  be  stated  from  still  another  point  of 
view.  The  modern  age,  in  its  almost  complete  reaction  from 
the  medieval  system,  wants  complete  democracy;  which 
means,  among  other  things,  that  there  shall  be  no  inside 
cliques,  whether  in  politics,  economics,  religion,  or  educa- 
tion. The  freedom  of  truth,  the  breadth  of  science,  the 
universality  of  art,  all  those  somewhat  elusive  hopes  which 
can  be  kept  only  by  the  exercise  of  eternal  vigilance  and 
whose  function  it  is  to  break  down  all  artificial  distinctions 
and  to  release  us  from  those  primitive  isolations  in  our  own 
routine  and  folkway  worlds  which  keep  us  from  the  realiza- 
tion of  our  essential  humanity — these  are  in  the  spirit  of 
the  modern  world ! 

In  the  efforts  to  work  out  these  ideals  and  to  realize  them 
through  the  modern  period  there  have  been  many  excesses, 
extravagances,  and  recantations,  bringing  much  suffering 
and  showing  humanity  in  the  depths  of  tragic  weakness. 
But  through  all  these  experiences,  whether  of  littleness  or 
of  greatness,  there  has  been  a  gradual  exploration  of  the 
world  of  men,  of  human  life  and  of  human  nature.  Men 
have  learned  by  their  mistakes  in  the  modern  world  as 
never  before;  and  the  more  we  explore  human  nature,  the 
more  we  make  use  of  mistakes  as  means  of  learning.  But 
men  have  learned  by  their  successes,  too.  Little  by  little 
progress  is  made.  But  even  yet  man  has  not  learned  the 
complete  method  of  his  own  experience.  Hence  all  too 
often  intelligence  still  follows  experience.  Still,  as  in  the 


232  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

primitive  world,  intelligence  may  be  after  the  event. 
Of  course  the  past  is  actively  obstructive  in  the  present. 
Institutions,  attitudes  of  mind,  systems,  ideals  inherited 
from  the  past — all  tend  to  obstruct  the  fulfilment  of  the 
present.  But  this  is  not  all  to  be  counted  as  lost.  The  san- 
est intelligence  of  the  modern  world  has  seen  rather  clearly 
that  life  must  be  rooted  deep  in  primitive  instinct  and  im- 
pulse, developed  through  long  practice,  schooled  in  the  dis- 
ciplines of  real  experience,  fed  by  all  the  streams  that  flow 
from  all  the  ancient  hills,  as  well  as  stimulated  by  the  stir- 
ring conditions  of  the  present.  It  takes  all  ages  to  make  the 
modern  age.  The  task  of  education  in  such  an  age  is,  how- 
ever, nothing  less  than  appalling.  Its  long  analysis  shall 
concern  us  in  the  remainder  of  this  study. 


PART  V 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  MODERN 

PERIOD 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  ELEMENTS   WITH   WHICH    MODERN    EDUCATION    HAS   HAD 

TO    WORK 

THE  general  problem  of  education  in  the  modern  period 
may  be  briefly  stated  somewhat  as  follows :  How  shall  the 
elusive  energies  and  enthusiasms  released  in  the  Renais- 
sance, the  Reformation,  and  the  revolutions  of  the  modern 
centuries  be  conserved  and  used  in  developing  a  new  social 
order,  while  at  the  same  time  the  tremendous  values  of  the 
older  organization  of  society  are  saved?  Can  a  modern, 
progressive,  educational  program,  involving  theory,  con- 
tent, and  practice,  be  developed,  a  program  which  will  be 
in  harmony  with  this  new  spirit  of  free  religion,  democ- 
racy in  political  and  industrial  life,  and  science,  thus  tak- 
ing the  place  of  the  medieval,  static,  and  mechanical  educa- 
tional program  which  embodied  and  inculcated  the  spirit 
of  authority  in  religion,  aristocracy  in  political  and  indus- 
trial organization,  and  dogmatism  in  the  field  of  knowledge  ? 
To  be  sure,  these  questions  do  not  fully  appear  in  the  early 
part  of  the  modern  period;  they  are  discovered  as  the  age 
goes  on.  Modern  education  has  not  always  been  self-con- 
scious ;  it  has  not  fully  known  what  it  was  trying  to  do  at  all 
times;  it  has  been  struggling  in  the  midst  of  tremendous 
complications,  trying  to  find  a  secure  footing  from  which 
to  survey  the  situation.  These  struggles  have  not  been 
academic;  they  have  been  most  real,  for  they  involve  the 
whole  destiny  of  civilization.  "Will  civilization,  i.e.,  the 
mere  onward  moving  of  historic  events,  overwhelm  intelli- 

235 


236  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

gence  and  escape  again  into  the  chaos  of  the  early  Middle 
Ages?  Or  will  intelligence  be  able  to  rise  to  the  high  de- 
mands of  the  times  and  find  an  ordered  way  through  the 
wilderness  of  the  modern  age?  Intelligence  is  at  work  in 
the  broad  fields  of  scientific  investigation.  Shall  the  results 
achieved  by  scientific  intelligence  be  lost  to  the  uses  of  life  ? 
Or  shall  other  intelligence,  appreciating  the  meaning  of 
science,  make  sure  that  each  new  generation  shall  share  in 
the  larger  results  and  meet  life  on  the  advancing  frontiers  ? 

Elements  with  Which  Modern  Education  Has  Had  to 
Reckon. — Modern  educational  effort,  both  theoretical  and 
practical,  has  had  to  reckon  with  two  distinctive  types  of 
educational  elements.  We  must  see  these  types  in  some 
clearness  if  we  are  to  appreciate,  and  so  share  in,  the  actual 
struggle  by  which  the  modern  period  has  won  to  its  ' '  pres- 
ent precarious  position."  These  two  types  can  best  be  de- 
scribed as  the  deductive  and  the  inductive. 

The  deductive  elements  may  be  summed  up  as  follows: 
The  traditions,  customs,  and  habits — the  "folkways"  of  the 
past — which  are  still  effective  long  after  they  may  seem  to 
have  been  broken  down;  the  institutions  of  the  Middle 
Ages  which  still  exist  in  many  regions  untouched  by  the 
modern  movement  and  in  all  lands  are  still  influential; 
fixed  methods  of  industry ;  manners  of  the  common  life  and 
prejudices  of  all  classes  of  people,  these  being  more  effective 
in  control  than  reason ;  the  definite  philosophy  of  a  created 
and  completed  world  within  which  all  change,  if  there  is 
any  such  thing,  must  still  go  on;  fixed  systems  of  knowl- 
edge, dominated  by  Aristotle's  logic,  to  which  all  new 
knowledge  must  conform;  traditional  representations  of 
psychology  which  had  made  no  real  progress  since  the  time 
of  the  Greeks  and  which  supposed  that  the  mind  was 
molded  by  the  objects  it  considered;  in  short,  the  general 
spirit  of  a  fixed  universe,  created,  complete,  and  logically 


ELEMENTS  IN  MODERN  EDUCATION       237 

and  psychologically  finished,  which  the  mind  for  its  own 
salvation  must  learn,  and  to  which  in  learning  it  must  con- 
form and  submit. 

The  inductive  elements  may  be  summed  up  as  follows: 
The  impulses,  energies,  and  enthusiasms  released  in  the 
whole  modern  movement — the  new  humanity,  the  new  an- 
tiquity, and  the  new  world  of  physical  nature;  the  spirit 
and  hope  of  a  progressive  realization  of  these  finer  ideals; 
the  new  treasures  of  knowledge  in  all  the  wide-reaching 
ranges  of  exploration  and  investigation  with  telescope  and 
microscope  and  compass;  the  new  worlds  of  thought  and 
action  which  offer  new  outlets  to  pent-up  impulses  and 
burdened  populations;  the  expectation  of  the  unknown  in 
the  geographical,  astronomical,  physical,  biological,  and 
social  aspects  of  the  world. 

'T  is  time 

New  hopes  should  animate  the  world,  new  light 
Should  dawn  from  new  revealings  to  a  race 
Weighed  down  so  long,  forgotten  so  long  .  .  -1 

Growing  out  of  these  new  elements  of  life  there  was  even 
an  overconfidence  that  the  new  age  was  to  come  by  quick, 
sure  means  to  the  very  heart  of  the  secret  of  all  existence. 
"Paracelsus  is  the  type  of  a  host  of  men  who  sprang  up 
all  over  Europe,  men  of  original  and  high  ideals,  but  men 
whose  undisciplined  imaginations  led  them  beyond  the 
bounds  of  sober  thinking. ' '  2 

Elements  which  were  Lacking  in  the  Beginnings  of  the 
Modern  Period. — Looking  back  upon  the  beginnings  of  the 
modern  age  after  four  hundred  years  of  struggle  and  effort, 
still  aware  of  "the  little  done,  the  undone  vast/'  realizing 
the  imperfection  of  the  tools  and  methods  with  which  the 
age  began  its  long  and  arduous  toils,  the  wonder  grows  how 

1  Browning's  "Paracelsus." 

2  Rogers :  "Student's  History  of  Philosophy,"  p.  23 1. 


238  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

men  could  ever  have  been  brave  enough  to  begin  a  task  of 
such  stupendous  labor.  Doubtless  few  appreciated  the 
magnitude  of  the  task  that  they  were  undertaking.  Doubt- 
less the  hope,  not  absent  anywhere,  that  some  "secret," 
some  "philosopher's  stone,"  would  be  found  by  which  the 
base  substances  of  life  could  be  quickly  changed  to  social 
"gold"  helped  to  inspire  and  stimulate  the  work.  But  it  is 
well  for  us  to  take  account  of  the  actual  lacks  in  the  way 
of  scientific  methods  and  tools  of  precision  with  which  that 
work  was  begun,  as  compared  with  the  methods  and  tools 
with  which  similar  work  goes  on  to-day,  remembering  that 
the  work  of  making  and  refining  our  tools  still  goes  on. 

What  did  the  early  modern  period  need  in  the  way  of 
tools?  What  must  those  ideals,  energies,  and  enthusiasms 
for  progress  have  that  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  have,  in 
order  that  they  might  be  assured  permanent  opportunity 
of  development  and  growth  ?  Here  are  some  of  the  items : 

(a)  A  more  progressive  logic  than  that  which  Aristotle 
gave  to  the  Middle  Ages ;  a  logic  of  movement,  growth,  and 
development,  to  take  the  place  of  the  logic  of  fixed  condi- 
tions, perfection,  and  exclusion.    Bacon  undertook  to  fur- 
nish this  new  logic,  this  Novum  Organum;  but  for  four 
hundred  years  men  have  worked,  at  first  fitfully  and  later 
more  seriously,  at  the  task  of  perfecting  this  new  instru- 
ment, and  the  task  is  still  unfinished. 

(b)  A  more  faithful  account  of  the  nature  of  human 
understanding  and  human  nature  in  general ;  that  is  to  say, 
a  psychology  which  shall  be  true  to  the  new  elements  of 
human  nature  that  have  come  to  light  in  this  new  age. 
The  psychology  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  primitive  and  in- 
tellectualistic,  but  it  served  fairly  well  the  purposes  of  the 
scholastics  and  the  needs  of  a  fixed,  folkway  world.     But 
the  new  age,  with  its  new  interests  and  its  new  explorations 
of  human  nature,  must  soon  find  a  new  psychology,  or  come 


ELEMENTS  IN  MODERN  EDUCATION       239 

to  the  end  of  its  explorations  and  give  over  its  interests. 
Education  is  profoundly  concerned  with  this  development, 
as  we  shall  see.  Descartes  (1596-1650)  may  be  regarded  as 
the  actual  leader  in  this  constructive  movement;  but  for 
three  hundred  years  men  have  been  working  at  this  task, 
and  the  work  must  go  on  for  other  centuries. 

(c)  A  more  thorough  investigation  of  the  nature  of  hu- 
man society,  its  origin  and  its  modes  of  combination,  de- 
velopment, and  control.     The  Middle  Ages  implicitly  held 
that  society  existed  only  when  held  together  within  institu- 
tional bonds.     This  made  of  men  mere  puppets  to  be  man- 
ipulated and  controlled  by  the  authorized  heads  of  institu- 
tions.    Its  outcome  was  the  feudal,  aristocratic,  and  stag- 
nate social  order  of  the  age.     But  the  new  age  has  dem- 
ocratic aspirations.     Can  a  democracy  be  organized  out 
of  puppets?     Education  must  become  distinctly  aware  of 
this  problem,  for  our  modern  world  has  been  hindered 
in  its  democratic  aspirations  by  the  existence  of  an  educa- 
tion which  in  theory  and  practice  retains  the  social  concep- 
tions of  the  Middle  Ages. 

(d)  A  more  fundamental  theory  of  the  origin  and  nature 
of  the  universe.     The  Middle  Ages  believed  that  the  world 
had  been  created,  and  that  it  had  been  pronounced  "very 
good."    But  the  new  age  was  feeling  the  impulse  of  the 
incomplete,  the  unfinished,  with  work  still  left  to  do.     Can 
progress  and  movement  exist  in  a  finished  universe?     But 
does  this  brave  new  age  dare  to  accept  the  theory  that  the 
universe  is  unfinished,  still  in  movement,  evolving  out  of  one 
condition  into  another?    Well,  not  for  several  hundred 
years,  at  any  rate.    But  the  seed  of  the  doctrine  is  in  the 
soil,  and  at  length  it  will  grow  and  break  through. 

(e)  A  complete  new  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
process  of  education.     In  a  preexistent,  Platonic  universe, 
with  all  knowledge  already  in  existence,  education  must 


240  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

consist  in  the  simple  process  of  learning  (usually  this 
means  committing  to  memory)  the  facts.  The  Middle  Ages 
carried  on  the  formal  education  in  this  way:  teachers  pro- 
nounced the  sentences,  and  the  pupils  took  them  down  and 
learned  them.  But  in  a  moving  universe  where  knowledge 
is  still  in  process  of  coming  to  be ;  where  impulses  and  en- 
thusiasms and  energies  and  ideals  and  purposes  that  have 
received  no  fixed  status  as  yet,  exist ;  where  new  humanities 
and  antiquities  and  worlds  of  nature  are  discovered ;  where 
new  logics  and  psychologies  and  sociologies  and  philoso- 
phies are  coming  into  being, — shall  educational  processes 
remain  stagnate,  stationary?  Shall  the  formal,  pedantic, 
and  barren  intellectualisms  of  the  old  social  order  suffice  for 
this  new  world  of  struggle  and  effort  after  something  bet- 
ter? Shall  education  linger  far  in  the  rear  of  the  world's 
progress,  or  shall  it  keep  step,  keep  time,  keep  spirit  with 
the  new?  Little  by  little  the  world  becomes  aware  of  the 
fact  that  democracy  itself  can  never  win  to  a  secure  posi- 
tion in  the  actualities  of  the  world  so  long  as  our  educa- 
tional conditions,  our  theories,  our  practices,  and  our  ad- 
ministrative controls  of  education  remain  autocratic. 

Briefly,  we  may  sum  up  the  problems  of  the  modern 
world-period  by  suggesting  that  progress  in  the  realization 
of  these  great  democratic  ideals  will  depend  upon  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  more  perfect  tools  of  science ;  a  logic  that  is 
able  to  escape  from  scholastic  presuppositions  into  the  actual 
freedom  of  intellectual  adventure;  a  scientific  method  of 
the  same  general  sort,  with  the  addition  that  as  the  cen- 
turies go  by  ever  finer  modes  of  control  will  be  developed, 
including  the  laboratory  method ;  a  theory  of  experience 
that  will  lend  itself  to  a  more  faithful  psychology;  a  less 
mystical  conception  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  and  a  will- 
ingness to  make  use  of  knowledge  in  the  reorganization  of 
the  conditions  of  living ;  a  natural  theory  of  the  origins  and 


ELEMENTS  IN  MODERN  EDUCATION       241 

relationships  of  society;  and  a  much  more  intelligent  ap- 
preciation of  the  processes  of  experience  which  are  involved 
in  education.  The  nature  of  the  universe,  of  society,  of 
human  nature,  of  the  human  mind,  of  the  processes  of 
knowledge,  of  the  processes  of  education — these  are  all  to  be 
investigated  and  new  theories  concerning  all  of  them  are 
to  grow  up.  The  modern  period  does  not  merely  develop 
more  things;  it  is  a  different  kind  of  a  world,  and  it  looks 
at  all  things  in  a  different  sort  of  way. 

The  task  of  education,  therefore,  will  be  seen  to  be  a  very 
different  sort  of  task.  The  fatal  defect  in  much  of  our 
modern  education  is  that  it  does  not  know  we  live  in  this 
different  sort  of  world.  To  all  too  great  an  extent  educa- 
tional procedure  goes  on  in  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
or  some  Protestant  restatement  of  the  Middle  Ages,  without 
reference  to  the  modern  background.  We  must  come  to  see 
our  modern  educational  tasks  against  the  background  of 
these  modern  world-movements  in  science,  democracy,  and 
the  love  of  freedom.  Undoubtedly  these  are  revolutionary 
movements;  they  are  so  presented  herein.  We  live  just 
now  in  a  world  of  revolutions.  But  there  is  need  of  edu- 
cation in  such  a  world,  in  order  that  the  revolutionary 
spirit  may  be  drained  off  into  the  spirit  of  a  progressive 
evolution.  Modern  education,  in  schools  and  elsewhere, 
must  be  made  to  be  a  conscious  effort  to  realize  in  the  actual 
life  of  childhood  and  growing  youth  the  rich  results  and  the 
mighty  spirit  of  the  modern  world  of  science  and  democ- 
racy. 

What  has  been  done  along  this  line  in  modern  centuries? 
What  still  remains  to  be  done?  To  these  aspects  of  our 
problem  we  must  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE   TRAGEDY  OP  HUMANISM   IN   THE  POST -RENAISSANCE 
PERIOD 

WITH  the  substantial  break  in  the  structure  of  medieval- 
ism which  came  with  the  Renaissance  came  disillusionment 
as  to  the  value  and  significance  of  the  traditional  education, 
— its  aims,  its  materials,  and  its  results.  The  question  of 
method  was  scarcely  raised  as  yet.  But  in  the  presence  of 
the  failure  of  this  old  social  order  and  the  disillusionment 
with  reference  to  its  educational  system,  which  way  can 
the  world  turn  to  find  its  new  means  of  education  ? 

Three  Possible  Outlets. — We  have  already  seen  that  the 
new  emotional  experiences  of  the  Renaissance  opened  out 
avenues  of  exploration  in  three  new  directions,  viz.,  toward 
classical  antiquity,  toward  the  social  world  of  the  age,  and 
toward  the  world  of  nature.  Each  of  these  avenues  is 
eventually  to  become  the  line  of  a  promising  constructive 
activity;  each  of  them  is  to  become  the  basis  of  an  educa- 
tional program  which  shall  seek  by  extreme  vociferation 
to  monopolize  the  whole  field  of  study.  But  for  a  time  the 
last  two  are  too  dimly  perceived  to  be  seized  upon.  The 
Renaissance,  as  we  have  seen,  devotes  its  whole  energy  to 
one  great  enterprise:  it  will  become  acquainted  with  that 
great  past  of  beauty,  poetry,  and  humanity  which  lies  before 
the  dreary  ages  of  medievalism ;  it  will  renew  its  youth  at 
classic  springs. 

What  was  Humanism? — Humanism  was  an  appeal  from 
the  barren  intellectualisms  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
gained  their  hold  upon  men  through  professing  the  power 

242 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  HUMANISM  243 

of  determining  and  controlling  eternal  destinies,  to  the 
richer  life  of  the  emotions,  feelings,  impulses,  and  social 
fellowships  of  the  human  world,  especially  to  those  noblest 
expressions  of  that  rich  life  of  emotions,  feelings,  impulses, 
and  fellowships  which  is  found  in  the  classic  literatures. 
The  humanity  of  men  came  to  a  new  birth  in  the  Italian 
cities;  it  found  its  justification,  its  support,  its  criticism, 
and  its  fulfilment  in  the  humanity  of  the  old  Greek  world. 
It  was  fed  upon  the  learning  of  the  ancients ;  it  realized  its 
own  more  complete  development  by  that  vitalizing  touch 
and  the  complete  absorption  into  the  life  of  that  older 
world,  which  was  "perhaps  the  most  completely  human 
social  order  the  world  has  ever  seen, ' '  despite  its  defects  and 
limitations.  At  its  best,  while  the  old,  free,  emotional 
spirit  played  through  it,  humanistic  study  and  education 
did  really  reproduce  something  of  the  liberality  of  life  and 
nature  of  the  old  Greek  world.  The  Italian  cities  fostered 
the  new  spirit;  the  tyrants  of  the  cities  set  up  the  new 
schools  of  humanistic  learning,  thereby  making  their  own 
uncertain  positions  more  secure.  Especially  was  this  the 
case  at  Milan,  where  the  Visconti  held  power,  and  at  Flor- 
ence, where  the  Medici  ruled  in  royal  state. 

The  best  type  of  these  schools,  perhaps,  was  that  of  Vit- 
torino  de  Feltre,  which  he  established  at  Mantua  about  1424. 
The  humanist  aim,  as  it  appeared  in  this  school,  was  the 
"harmonious  development  of  the  mind,  the  body,  and  the 
moral  life," — that  balance  of  all  bodily  and  mental  powers 
which  should  be  the  character  of  the  free  man,  the  human 
being,  and  which  had  expressed  the  Greek  ideal  of  a  liberal 
education.  The  life  of  action  was  included  in  this  ideal; 
for  the  human  was  distinguished  from  the  pedant  in  no 
respect  more  profoundly  than  in  this,  that  he  found  the 
real  test  of  life  in  action,  rather  than  in  mere  intellection. 

Inevitable  Tendencies. — But  as  we  have  seen,  while  this 


244  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

new  age  found  new  emotional  outlets  and  new  materials  of 
great  value,  the  question  of  the  method  of  education  was 
scarcely  raised.  As  long  as  men  felt  the  fresh  glow  of  en- 
thusiasm for  the  beauty  and  poetry  of  the  humanities,  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  humanism  pervaded  the  actual  school 
and  overflowed  even  into  the  very  method  of  teaching.  Vit- 
torino  held  himself  to  be  "  the  father  of  his  pupils, ' '  an  atti- 
tude profoundly  different  from  that  of  the  intellectual  task- 
masters of  the  medieval  schools.  But  this  attitude  was  an 
enthusiasm,  a  sentiment,  growing  out  of  his  enthusiasms 
for  the  materials  with  which  he  was  dealing.  It  was  not, 
— in  the  state  of  psychology,  it  could  not  become, — a  rea- 
soned program  of  teaching  procedure ;  but  as  a  mere  senti- 
ment it  must  gradually  dissolve  and  disappear,  if  not  in 
Vittorino  himself,  then  in  those  who  came  after  him.  Not 
only  was  this  so,  but  the  whole  humanistic  movement  was 
predominantly  an  emotion;  and  when  it  tried  to  state  its 
aims  and  methods  in  intelligent  terms,  because  it  did  not 
realize  that  a  new  outlook  upon  the  world  implies  a  new 
type  of  logic  and  psychology  and  because  no  such  new  type 
of  logic  or  psychology  was  as  yet  in  existence,  humanism  fell 
backward  toward  the  formalism  it  professed  to  abhor.  The 
implicit  method  of  this  humanistic  education  was  still  the 
method  of  medievalism;  and  in  the  absence  of  corrective 
intelligence  our  implicit  methods  of  thinking  will  control 
and  organize  after  their  own  fashion  the  most  obdurate 
materials  of  thinking.  The  only  possible  chance  for  hu- 
manism to  endure  lay  in  its  ability  to  develop  a  humanist 
logic  with  which  to  displace  the  machine-logic  of  Aristotle. 
This  it  could  not  do;  hence  it  fell  a  victim  to  the  very 
system  it  professed  to  despise.  We  must  see  how  this 
happened. 

The  Degeneration  of  Humanism. — The  generous  enthusi- 
asms and  high  emotions  of  the  first  generations  of  the  new 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  HUMANISM  245 

age  were  the  refined  product  of  the  purifying  influences 
of  these  classic  materials.  What  was  more  natural  than 
to  assume  that  these  classic  materials  could  produce  these 
nobler  forms  of  living  and  thinking  age  upon  age  ?  At  any 
rate,  such  an  argument  arose  and  became  the  educational 
doctrine  of  the  period  in  a  dominating  sort  of  way.  And 
out  of  this  doctrine,  generation  by  generation,  there  flowed 
a  stream  of  strange  and  unforeseen  consequences.  For  the 
argument  developed  unexpected  turns  and  windings,  and 
it  led  to  an  outcome  that  would  have  been  abhorrent  to  the 
spirit  of  its  beginnings,  if  that  outcome  could  have  been 
foreseen.  Let  us  follow  the  argument  through  its  various 
stages.  We  may  phrase  it  as  if  the  spirit  of  these  successive 
generations  were  voicing  their  several  contributions  to  it: 

Contact  with  these  classic  materials  has  refined  and 
purified  these  two  or  three  generations  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries;  hence  the  same  experience  will 
refine  and  purify  and  exalt  any  generation.  Let  us  there- 
fore make  our  whole  education  out  of  these  classic  ma- 
terials. Greek  and  Latin  shall  be  the  intellectual  nourish- 
ment of  all  the  coming  generations;  thus  shall  we  assure 
ourselves  that  all  these  coming  generations  shall  have  re- 
fined, purified,  and  ennobled  characters  not  unlike  our 
own.1 

But  the  classic  literatures  are  not  easily  accessible.  We 
must  study  the  language  before  we  can  reach  the  literature 
with  its  liberating  content;  hence  the  curriculum  must  go 
back  of  the  literature  to  the  primary  study  of  the  lan- 
guages, not,  of  course,  for  the  sake  of  the  languages,  but 
for  the  sake  of  getting  at  the  content  that  is  locked  up  in 
the  languages.  In  the  long  run,  of  course,  the  study  of 
these  languages  will  lead  us  back  to  the  literatures;  and 

1  Cf .  The  Curriculum  of  Sturm's  Gymnasium :  "Monroe's  Text 
Book,"  p.  391, 


246 

then  mastery  of  the  literatures,  made  possible  by  the  mas- 
tery of  the  languages,  will  unlock  and  unfold  our  own 
struggling  impulses  and  originalities.1 

Again : 

But  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  are  contained  within 
the  niceties  of  grammatical  construction  and  idiomatic 
usage;  grammar  is  the  actual  clue  to  the  understanding 
and  mastery  of  language.  Hence  our  curriculum  must  be 
primarily  made  up  of  the  study  of  grammar,  not,  it  is 
obvious,  for  the  sake  of  the  grammar,  but  for  the  sake  of 
the  language,  which  is  to  be  the  key  to  the  unlocking  of 
that  liberal  content  which  is  hidden  in  the  literatures  and 
which  is  to  purify  and  ennoble  our  spirits,  our  struggling 
feelings,  and  emotions.  In  the  long  run  the  study  of  gram- 
mar will  unlock  and  unfold  the  classic  languages  and  give 
us  free  access  to  those  classic  literatures  in  which  we  shall 
find  what  our  souls  most  need. 

Finally: 

But  not  all  literature  is  of  the  finest  form;  not  all  lan- 
guage is  of  noblest  mold;  not  all  grammar  is  worthy  of 
study.  Even  in  these  classic  fields  there  are  obvious  grada- 
tions of  values.  Evidently  it  will  be  a  waste  of  time,  as 
well  as  a  source  of  possible  danger  to  our  future  characters, 
if  we  shall  devote  ourselves  to  these  classic  authors  at 
random.  Let  us  spend  time  on  none  but  the  highest  and 
most  worthy.  Who  is  that  highest  and  worthiest?  Can 
there  be  doubt  in  that  subject?  Who,  indeed,  but  Cicero, 
— Cicero,  the  incomparable  orator,  the  admitted  master  of 
perfect  Latin  style  ?  Let  us  boldly  adhere  to  him,  the  high- 
est. Let  us  ''discard  all  subjects  that  do  not  admit  of  be- 
ing discussed  in  Cicero's  recorded  words." 

So,  by  these  stages  of  argument,  we  reach  the  anti-climax 
and  the  lowest  levels  of  humanistic  decadence ;  we  come  to 

iCf.  Roger  Ascham,  "The  Scholemaster"   (1570). 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  HUMANISM  247 

' '  Ciceronianism. "  This  may  seem  like  a  caricature,  but  it 
is  simple,  sober,  historic  fact.  We  must  study  the  perfect 
grammar  of  the  noblest  Latin  as  that  appears  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Cicero ;  this  will  bring  us  to  the  perfect  language  of 
the  classics,  by  means  of  which  we  shall  be  able  to  read  the 
liberalizing  literatures  of  the  ancient  humanities,  by  means 
of  which  our  needy  souls  may  be  refined  and  purified.  The 
educational  doctrine  underlying  this  decadent  movement  is 
to  be  stated  in  some  such  way  as  this :  ' '  Since  all  the  great 
spirits  of  the  ages  have  passed  away,  the  hope  of  the  world 
lies  in  imitation.  Imitate,  therefore,  but  imitate  the  best ! ' ' 

An  incidental  result  of  this  doctrine  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  such  imitation  rarely  gets  beyond  the  slavery  of  a 
literal  study  of  the  mechanics  of  language.  Hence  at  that 
period,  and  in  large  measure  ever  since,  the  language  and 
grammar  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins  have  stood  between  the 
modern  man  and  any  real  contact  with  the  classics.  There 
has  been  a  sort  of  prejudice  against  reading  the  classics  in 
English  translations;  and  very  few  have  ever  penetrated 
through  the  original  languages  to  the  content  of  their  mes- 
sage. 

The  Educational  Status  of  the  "Ciceronian." — The 
fully  developed  Ciceronian  attitude  belongs,  educationally, 
back  in  the  shadows  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  its  essence  is  not 
modern  and  scientific,  but  medieval,  pedantic,  and  scholas- 
tic. The  Ciceronian  ought  to  have  been  a  warning  to  his 
own  age  and  to  later  ages ;  but  neither  his  own  age  nor  the 
later  ages  learn  much  from  warnings.  But  if  the  warning 
could  be  understood,  it  would  run  something  like  this :  No 
mere  material  can  be  called  either  medieval  or  modern; 
any  sort  of  material  lends  itself  to  any  sort  of  organization 
or  presentation.  The  only  hope  of  the  free  intelligence, 
the  free  emotional  life,  and  the  free  social  order  which 
seemed  promised  in  the  Renaissance,  is  to  be  found  not  in 


248  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

materials  at  all,  but  in  the  development  of  the  actual  logic 
of  a  liberal  life,  of  a  freed  intelligence,  of  a  democratic 
social  order.  The  fundamental  educational  question  of  the 
modern  world  is  to  be  not  What  shall  I  study,  but  How 
shall  I  know  what  I  do  know?  Shall  I  know  it  as  if  it 
were  a  final  and  unchangeable  fragment  of  a  complete  and 
changeless  universe?  Or  shall  I  know  it  as  if  it  were  but 
an  item  in  the  growth  of  an  unfinished  and  incomplete  uni- 
verse of  experience  ? 

But  of  course  no  such  abstract  question  appeared  to  the 
people  of  the  times,  not  even  to  Erasmus  who  satirizes  the 
movement  in  mighty  fashion.  It  was  an  age  grown  weary 
of  enthusiasms,  ready  for  the  refuge  of  formalisms  that 
made  thinking  unnecessary,  even  ready  to  be  happy  in  what 
Milton  calls  the  "asinine  feast  of  brambles  and  sow-thistles" 
on  which  the  age  attempted  to  nourish  itself.  And  the  six- 
teenth, seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries  complacently 
accepted  such  formal  educational  practices  as  natural  and 
proper;  that  is  to  say,  the  school-men  did.  We  may  be 
thankful,  however,  that  tendencies  and  energies  were  deeply 
at  work  all  through  those  centuries  which  were  to  change 
completely  the  current  of  this  complacent  acceptance  of  the 
lifeless  and  formal  and  bring  back  once  more  to  earth  en- 
thusiasms for  real  humanity  which,  being  constantly  re- 
newed from  generation  to  generation,  survives  all  degenera- 
tions of  the  humanities  and  goes  on  to  new  expressions  of  its 
endless  energies  and  variety.  The  coming  revolutions  in 
politics,  economics,  religion,  and  science  will  throw  into 
relief  new  aims,  new  materials,  and  especially  new  modes 
of  living  and  thinking,  which  will  gradually  leave  the  old 
pedantries  behind  and  make  even  a  new  education  necessary. 

Leaving  humanism  to  follow  its  own  course  to  the  end, 
we  must  turn  to  the  next  answer  of  the  age  to  the  insistent 
educational  problems. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

PANSOPHY   AS   AN   EDUCATIONAL   PROGRAM 

WE  have  already  noted  the  tremendous  developments  of 
new  knowledges  in  the  many  ranges  of  new  interest  that 
came  in  with  the  new  age,  partly  as  cause,  partly  as  effect 
of  this  new  movement.  We  have  seen  that  when  the  Ren- 
aissance was  confronted  with  the  intimations  of  rich  de- 
velopments o'f  knowledge  along  the  three  great  lines  that 
emerged  in  that  time,  it  turned  its  attention  very  largely 
to  the  one  dominant  interest — classical  antiquity.  It  chose 
as  its  answer  to  the  question,  now  that  the  medieval  struc- 
ture of  education  is  gone,  what  shall  we  do  along  educational 
lines,  this  one  great  field  as  inclusive  of  humanity.  We 
have  seen  the  tragic  outcome  of  that  choice.  Nothing  is  in- 
clusive of  humanity  that  falls  short  of  all  that  humanity 
has  done  and  can  hope  to  do.  So  the  world  must  seek  for 
a  new  and  more  inclusive  ideal  and  program.  Is  it  not  pos- 
sible to  include  all  three  of  these  aspects  of  the  world — 
antiquity,  society,  nature — in  one  all-encompassing  aim? 

Encyclopedism. — From  the  days  of  Plato  the  efforts  of 
school-men  have  been  directed  to  the  construction  of  a 
curriculum  that  should  be  inclusive  of  all  knowledge. 
During  the  Middle  Ages  the  ' '  Seven  Liberal  Arts ' '  included 
substantially  all  learning,  as  we  have  seen.  And  as  long 
as  the  search  for  knowledge  went  on  under  the  strict  cen- 
sorship of  the  medieval  authorities  there  was  little  danger 
of  the  escape  of  any  knowledge  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
the  accepted  curriculum.  Quintilian  speaks  of  this  univer- 
sal circle  of  the  sciences  which  constitutes  all  knowledge  as 

249 


250  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

"encyclopedia,"  and  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  extensive 
works  treating  of  all  the  known  departments  of  knowledge 
were  published. 

But  with  the  dawn  of  the  period  of  discovery,  explora- 
tion, and  investigation,  knowledge  overflowed  the  channels 
of  the  "Seven  Liberal  Arts,"  the  " enclycopedias, "  and  all 
other  fixed  organizations  of  the  sciences.  Scholastic  study 
attempted,  however,  to  keep  the  straight  path  of  the  tradi- 
tional seven;  and  the  humanistic  education  of  the  Renais- 
sance, as  we  have  seen,  limited  its  interests  to  the  classics, 
growing  more  and  more  restrictive  as  the  years  went  by, 
until  it  ended  in  the  narrow  groove  of  Ciceronianism. 
Neither  the  dogmatic  ideals  of  the  scholastics  nor  the  bar- 
ren formalism  of  the  humanists  could  really  satisfy  the 
new  world  in  the  midst  of  the  unceasing  developments  of 
knowledge.  Encyclopedism  again  emerges  as  the  educa- 
tional ideal,  broadened  now  to  include  all  the  new  knowledge 
and  with  a  new  name,  freeing  it  somewhat  from  invidious 
memory.  That  new  name  was — 

Pansophy. — Bacon  was  largely  responsible  for  the  emer- 
gence of  this  conception  as  the  new  ideal  of  education. 
Bacon  was  a  strange  mingling  of  characteristics.  As  we 
shall  see  later,  he  was  largely  responsible  for  the  beginnings 
of  that  new  method  of  study  which  is  now  called  scientific, 
as  distinguished  from  the  scholastic.  But  his  first  essay 
into  the  field  of  education  shows  him  as  the  advocate  of  the 
doctrine  that  the  human  mind  can  encompass  all  knowledge. 
His  "Advancement  of  Learning"  attempts  to  organize  all 
existent  knowledge  so  that  the  mind  can  absorb  it  all.  His 
own  famous  remark  is,  "I  have  taken  all  knowledge  to  my 
province. ' '  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  new  method  which 
he  was  to  inaugurate  has  shown  the  world  that  the  particu- 
lar human  mind  cannot  encompass  all  learning.  And  other 
developments  of  the  centuries  since  Bacon  show  that  edu- 


PANSOPHY  AN  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM   251 

cation  is  something  other  than  quantity  of  knowledge ;  that 
all  learning  is  not  essential  to  education. 

Comenius. — The  great  educational  exponent  of  the  Pan- 
sophic  ideal  was  John  Amos  Comenius  (1592-1670). 
Though  usually  presented  as  an  exponent  of  sense  realism, 
he  stands  especially  as  an  advocate  of  the  possibility  of 
teaching  all  things  to  all  men,  though  he  would  limit  ''all 
things"  to  those  real  things  which  actually  nourish  the 
mind,  as  distinguished  from  the  verbalisms  taught  in  these 
schools  of  his  own  time.  These  he  calls  "slaughter-houses 
of  the  mind,"  "places  where  the  mind  is  fed  on  words." 
The  title  of  his  great  work,  "Didactica  Magna,"  shows  him 
as  the  advocate  of  the  pansophic  ideal:  "The  Great  Di- 
dactic setting  forth  the  whole  art  of  teaching  all  things  to 
all  men,  or  a  certain  Inducement  to  found  such  schools  in 
all  the  Parishes,  Towns,  and  Villages  of  any  Christian  King- 
dom, that  the  entire  Youth  of  both  Sexes,  none  being  ex- 
cepted,  shall  quickly,  pleasantly,  and  thoroughly  become 
learned  in  the  sciences,  etc."  Another  of  his  works  was 
called  "Pansophici  Libri  Delineatio."  He  projected  a 
work  to  be  called  "Janua  Rerum  sive  Sapientiae  Porta," 
which  was  to  have  been  of  the  nature  of  a  universal  ency- 
clopedia, a  complete  statement  of  all  that  had  been  accom- 
plished within  the  field  of  human  knowledge.  Though  the 
real  significance  of  Comenius  in  the  history  of  education 
does  not  rest  upon  his  pansophic  conceptions  and  efforts, 
we  are  concerned  with  him  here  in  that  light  alone;  and 
while  this  presentation  of  his  work  is  one-sided,  it  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  give  a  true  representation  of  this  particu- 
lar ideal  which  for  a  time  held  the  attention  of  the  scien- 
tific world. 

Pansophy  in  England. — Bacon  had  begun  the  encyclo- 
pedic movement  in  its  general  modern  aspect;  Comenius 
was  the  chief  educational  representative  of  this  ideal. 


252  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Hence  he  was  invited  to  England  to  present  to  Parliament 
his  plan  for  a  Collegium  Didacticum,  or  Pansophicum, 
which  was  to  be  a  sort  of  universal  scientific  laboratory 
and  clearing-house  for  the  sciences  of  all  nations,  modelled 
somewhat  on  the  plans  of  "Solomon's  House"  which  Bacon 
described  in  his  "New  Atlantis."  This  was  in  1641.  Be- 
fore anything  definite  could  be  undertaken,  the  great  civil 
war  broke  out  and  all  such  projects  had  to  be  abandoned. 
But  Comenius  joined  with  Samuel  Hartlib  and  John  Dury, 
friends  who  had  been  instrumental  in  inviting  him  to  Eng- 
land, in  working  out  a  scheme  for  an  "Office  of  Address" 
to  be  located  in  London,  which  was  to  become  a  national 
bureau  of  help  to  the  poor,  securing  employment  for  them. 
This  was  also  to  be  a  means  of  preventing  further  divisions 
in  religious  organizations,  an  instrument  for  the  advance- 
ment of  learning  and  the  founding  of  schools,  and  a  clearing 
house  for  the  learned  of  all  nations,  receiving  and  spreading 
information  about  scientific  achievements,  particularly  in- 
ventions, so  that  all  the  world  might  be  served  by  any  new 
discovery  anywhere  worked  out.  This  "Office  of  Ad- 
dress" was  an  institution  something  like  the  Bureau  of 
Education  in  the  United  States.  It  shows  the  great  hopes 
of  the  age — the  encompassing  of  universal  knowledge,  the 
organization  of  universal  international  relationships,  at 
least  in  knowledge,  and  the  eventual  unification  of  the 
Christian  world. 

The  End  of  Pansophy. — Efforts  to  carry  out  the  ideal  of 
pansophy  did  not  cease  with  the  departure  of  Comenius 
from  England.  But  the  details  of  those  further  efforts 
need  not  delay  us  here.  The  developments  of  knowledge 
were  too  great;  no  mind  could  compass  all.  At  the  same 
time  the  developments  in  logic  and  psychology  roused  the 
suspicion,  though  it  was  still  too  early  in  the  history  of 
these  developments  for  this  to  be  much  more  than  a  sus- 


PANSOPHY  AN  EDUCATIONAL  PROGRAM   253 

picion,  that  education  does  not  depend  upon  the  amount  of 
information  which  one  absorbs,  but  upon  something  else. 
So  that  John  Locke  wrote,  in  a  treatise  published  after  his 
death  in  1704,  words  to  the  following  effect:  The  extent 
of  possible  knowledge  is  so  vast,  and  the  period  of  our  life 
on  earth  so  short,  and  the  avenues  by  which  knowledge  en- 
ters the  mind  of  man  are  so  narrow,  that  a  long  lifetime  is 
not  sufficient  to  acquaint  us  not  merely  with  the  things 
which  we  are  capable  of  knowing  nor  with  the  things  which 
it  might  be  convenient  for  us  to  know,  but  even  with  the 
things  which  it  would  be  very  advantageous  for  us  to 
know.  Locke  here  shows  how  educational  thinking  was 
taking  the  place  of  traditional  ideas  and  ideals  about 
quantity  of  materials.  This  may  be  a  very  crude  divi- 
sion of  knowledges,  and  one  having  little  scientific  va- 
lidity, but  it  indicates  that  analysis  is  beginning;  and 
analyses  will  open  the  way  to  the  new  world  of  valid  and 
lasting  distinctions.  Locke,  himself,  had  earlier  conceived 
education,  as  we  shall  see,  as  having  more  to  do  with  the 
"conduct  of  the  understanding"  than  with  the  compassing 
of  a  certain  amount  of  information  in  memory.  At  any 
rate,  the  discrediting  of  pansophism  brings  to  an  end  a  the- 
ory that  regarded  the  mind  as  a  sponge  and  education  as  a 
process  of  filling  it  up  with  knowledge  in  the  nature  of 
universal  information  From  this  time  forward  educational 
thinking  must  seek  other  avenues  of  constructive  endeavor. 
Encyclopedism  is  too  easy,  despite  its  difficulties.  Mere  ac- 
cumulation of  bulk  information  does  not  make  a  mind,  just 
as  mere  piling  up  of  grains  of  sand  does  not  make  a  world. 
But  as  we  stand  in  the  midst  of  this  period  of  uncertainty, 
we  seem  to  be  facing  an  insurmountable  barrier.  Human- 
ism fails,  despite  all  our  hopes;  pansophism  palls  upon  us, 
as  overfeeding  on  a  hardy  man.  Which  way  shall  we  turn  ? 
Shall  we  try  to  sift  out  the  growing  masses  of  knowledge  in 


254  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  hope  of  finding  some  magical  material  that  will  succeed 
where  the  humanities  failed?  Shall  we  try  to  get  under- 
neath all  knowledge,  regarded  simply  as  facts,  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  real  significance  of  knowledge  as  a  factor 
in  the  development  of  mind  and  as  a  tool  in  the  organization 
of  social  life  ? 

At  any  rate,  pansophy  has  shown  the  limitations  of  any 
theory  of  education  which  depends  wholly  upon  general 
subject-matter.  Henceforward  educational  thinking  must 
begin  to  make  some  sort  of  real  distinctions  within  the 
general  field  of  these  other  assumptions  of  universality. 
This  at  least  pansophy  has  contributed  to  the  world. 

Leaving  that  aspect  of  the  subject,  then,  we  turn  to  the 
new  developments. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE   NEW   METHOD    OP    BACON 

WHEN  the  question  was  raised,  What  shall  we  do  with  all 
these  overwhelming  treasures  of  new  knowledge  the  scholas- 
tics had  replied,  "Ignore  them  or  compel  them  to  submit 
to  official  classification";  the  narrow  humanists  of  the  Ren- 
aissance had  replied,  "Choose  the  perfect  materials  from 
among  the  mass — choose  the  classics ' ' ;  and  an  imaginative 
group  of  men,  the  pansophists,  with  their  faces  to  the  future 
and  with  boundless  belief  in  the  elasticity  of  human  intelli- 
gence had  replied,  ' '  Choose  all,  learn  all ;  become  universal 
minds!"  But  each  of  these  replies  is  basically  unintelli- 
gent and  therefore  offers  no  real  hope  to  the  world.  If  the 
future  is  to  find  a  pathway  of  freedom  and  intelligence  out 
of  the  common  world  where  the  ignorant  dogmatisms  of  the 
scholastics,  the  emotional  prejudices  of  the  humanists,  and 
the  boundless  gullibility  of  the  pansophists  all  exist  side  by 
side,  some  new  and  as  yet  unrealized,  even  unsuspected 
method  of  progress  must  be  discovered,  some  outlet  upon 
some  undetermined  field  of  knowing  or  some  new  interpre- 
tation of  experience.  We  find  the  beginnings  of  this  new 
method  in  Bacon's  efforts  to  establish  inductive  science. 

Bacon  Breaks  with  the  Past. — Bacon  began  this  phase 
of  his  constructive  work  by  breaking  away  from  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  past  and  by  criticizing  not  so  much  the  ma- 
terials, but  the  method,  the  logic,  of  the  past.  Of  course  in 
Bacon's  time  (1561-1626),  the  emotional  and  religious 
conflicts  had  already  been  accomplished  in  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Reformation;  and  a  very  great  deal  of  actual  sci- 

255 


256  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

entific  work  had  been  carried  through.  For  example, 
Copernicus  had  overthrown  the  old  Ptolemaic  universe  long 
before  Bacon  was  born;  Kepler  was  working  out  his  laws 
of  planetary  motion  in  the  same  generation  with  Bacon; 
and  before  Bacon's  death  the  invention  of  telescope  and 
microscope  had  revealed  to  the  world  the  existence  of  the 
infinite  and  the  infinitesimal  universes,  while  in  the  former 
realm  Galileo  was  working  out  the  foundations  of  mechanics 
with  the  demonstrations  of  his  laws  of  falling  bodies.  But 
practical  investigation  may  go  on  for  a  long  time  before 
it  becomes  aware  that  it  has  departed  very  far  from  the 
logic  of  old  orders  of  knowledge.  And  it  may  take  some  one 
from  outside  the  actual  field  of  practical  work  to  discover 
the  new  method  that  is  being  more  or  less  unconsciously 
followed  by  the  practical  workers.  Bacon  was  not  much 
of  a  scientist  himself,  if  by  scientist  one  means  observer; 
but  Bacon  was  the  first  of  men  to  perceive  the  actualities 
of  a  genuinely  new  method  in  this  work,  and  in  this  particu- 
lar he  is  the  greatest  scientist  of  his  time,  the  "Father  of 
Modern  Science,"  even  though  he  neither  clearly  saw  nor 
definitely  stated  the  method. 

But  for  the  most  part  the  science  of  Bacon 's  time  was  not 
of  a  high  order,  as  he  himself  declared;  it  gave  men 
neither  the  knowledge  of  things  nor  the  power  of  control 
over  them.  And  for  Bacon  " knowledge  is  power";  that 
is  to  say,  the  only  knowledge  that  can  be  counted  for  sci- 
ence is  knowledge  that  actually  increases  man's  power  of 
control  over  nature.  Hence  we  must  break  with  the  whole 
structure  of  scholastic  science,  especially  with  the  methods 
of  old  knowledge,  i.e.,  scholastic  logic,  and  look  for  a  new 
method,  a  novum  organum,  with  which  to  build  up  the 
new  structure  of  science  that  can  be  depended  upon. 

The  Distempers  of  Learning. — Bacon  points  out  three 
common  defects  in  science,  or,  as  he  calls  them,  "distem- 


THE  NEW  METHOD  OF  BACON  257 

pers"  in  the  learning  of  his  times.  The  first  he  calls  "fan- 
tastical learning,"  by  which  he  means  the  whole  range  of 
pseudo-science,  alchemy,  natural  magic,  old  wives'  tales, 
credulities,  wonders,  ghost-stories,  miracles,  and  impos- 
tures of  all  sorts,  which  the  age  had  inherited  from  the  ig- 
norant past  and  which  it  garnered  and  conserved  as  pre- 
cious treasure,  but  which  stood  so  obstinately  in  the  way 
of  valid  science.  And  it  still  stands!  The  second  of 
these  distempers  he  calls  ' '  contentious  learning, ' '  by  which 
he  means  the  sort  of  knowledge  professed  by  the  scholastics. 
This  is  not  knowledge  at  all,  but  endless  disputations  about 
questions  which,  while  once  important,  have  lost  all  their 
significance.  "The  fable  of  Scylla,"  he  says,  "is  a  lively 
image  of  the  present  state  of  letters,  with  the  countenance 
and  expression  of  a  virgin  above,  but  ending  in  a  multi- 
tude of  barking  questions,  fruitful  of  controversy  and  bar- 
ren of  effect."  The  third  of  these  distempers  is  what  he 
calls  "delicate  learning,"  referring  to  the  dilettante  spirit 
of  the  Renaissance,  which  had  some  considerable  vogue  all 
over  Europe  and  which  was  verbal,  rather  than  real,  and 
stylish  and  polished,  rather  than  socially  substantial.  So 
long  as  the  mind  is  affected  by  these  distempers,  or  so 
long  as  learning  is  dominated  by  any  one  of  these  three 
types  of  defect,  there  can  be  little  hope  for  real  science. 
How  shall  learning  escape  from  these  limitations?  And 
at  the  same  time  how  shall  we  be  able  to  find  our  way 
through  the  new  materials  that  are  being  discovered,  dis- 
tinguishing true  from  false  and  building  the  substantial 
structure  of  science?  More  than  this,  how  shall  we  be 
able  to  fill  in  the  gaps  in  learning,  actually  digging  out 
from  the  unknown  the  information  that  we  may  need  to 
make  complete  our  knowledge  in  any  particular  direction? 
The  answer  is  the  same  for  all:  By  the  new  method. 
The  Method  of  Inductive  Science. — Induction,  for 


258  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Bacon,  means  first  of  all  learning  from  nature  herself.  It 
means  coming  to  nature  with  an  open  mind;  it  means  the 
gathering  of  a  mass  of  particulars,  the  facts  of  sensation 
and  perception,  individual  impressions  seen  clearly  and 
exactly  and  with  the  help  of  instruments,  if  such  exist;  it 
means  careful  progress  step  by  step  toward  the  universal 
that  is  involved  in  these  carefully  observed,  ordered,  and 
criticized  particulars ;  it  means  leaving  the  universal  prop- 
ositions so  gained  open  to  future  reconstruction,  thus 
keeping  the  system  of  knowledge  open  to  future  growth; 
it  means  testing  conclusions  by  experiment,  thus  bringing 
the  conclusion  back  close  to  the  actual  source  of  all  real 
knowledge;  it  means  making  sure  that  all  "instances  con- 
tradictory" have  been  carefully  considered.  Eventually, 
so  Bacon  thought,  science  would  be  able  to  exhaust  the  sum 
of  particulars  in  the  world;  and  when  these  particulars 
have  been  tabulated,  organized,  and  brought  to  their  proper 
universal  conclusions,  we  should  be  getting  at  the  ultimate 
forms  or  "essences"  of  things,  i.e.,  knowledge,  itself.  He 
gives  us  an  example  of  the  new  method.  He  undertakes  to 
find  out  what  is  the  essence  of  heat.  He  collects  a  large 
number  of  instances  of  heated  objects  and  proceeds  to 
search  for  the  quality  or  essence  common  to  all  these  ob- 
jects and  manifested  in  the  experience  of  heat.  With  a 
good  deal  of  ingenious  argument  he  reaches  the  conclusion 
that  the  "essence"  of  heat  is  motion. 

It  is  obvious  to-day  that  while  Bacon's  conception  of  the 
inductive  method  was  by  no  means  complete  or  correct,  it 
made  a  revolutionary  break  with  the  contentious  and  de- 
ductive attitudes  of  the  scholastics;  and  it  offered  a  stern 
rebuke  to  the  delicate  and  no  less  deductive  attitude  of  the 
humanists.  But  it  will  take  centuries  after  Bacon  before 
the  full  significance  of  this  new  method  becomes  apparent 
for  natural  science,  to  say  nothing  of  its  meanings  for  the 


THE  NEW  METHOD  OF  BACON  259 

social  and  educational  sciences.  But  we  must  now  ask, 
Why  does  such  a  straightforward  method  fail  to  take  quick 
hold  upon  the  imaginations  of  men  of  intelligence  ?  Bacon 
saw  that  his  work  would  not  succeed  at  once,  and  for  very 
clear  reasons.  He  describes  these  reasons  under  a  striking 
comparison  with  idols;  men's  minds  are  so  bound  up  with 
the  worship  of  old  idols  that  there  is  no  present  chance 
that  they  will  care  to  take  up  this  new  method.  What  are 
these  idols  ? 

Bacon's  Idols. — The  mind  of  man  is  not  free  to  follow 
new  methods  in  the  search  for  truth.  The  mind  has  be- 
come subordinate  to  conditions  of  its  own  methods,  to  fears 
of  its  own  establishing,  to  idols  its  own  hands  have  made, 
as  we  saw  in  the  folkways.  Induction  demands  that  the 
mind  shall  start  with  no  prejudices  or  presuppositions,  or 
so  Bacon  thought.  But  since  we  are  in  the  power  of  these 
idols,  there  seems  to  be  little  real  chance  for  the  inductive 
sciences. 

The  first  of  these  idols  he  calls  the  "idols  of  the  tribe." 
By  this  term  he  means  certain  prejudices  and  presupposi- 
tions common  to  the  whole  race,  e.g.,  the  fear  of  anything 
new.  This  is  a  genuine  folkway  attitude,  an  idol  remain- 
ing from  the  primitive  world.  The  second  of  these  idols 
he  calls  the  ' '  idols  of  the  cave, ' '  i.e.,  presuppositions  which 
belong  to  the  individual  alone.  "For  everyone,  besides  the 
faults  he  shares  with  the  race,  has  a  cave  or  den  of  his  own 
which  refracts  and  discolors  the  light  of  nature,"  e.g.,  the 
"ideals  of  a  gentleman."  The  third  group  he  calls  "idols 
of  the  forum,"  by  which  he  means  the  controlling  influ- 
ences that  inhere  in  words.  "Men  believe  that  their  rea- 
son governs  words,  but  it  is  also  true  that  words,  like 
the  arrows  from  a  Tartar  bow,  are  shot  back,  and  react 
upon  the  mind."  Such  a  word  as  "coward"  exercises  re- 
markable influence  over  men's  actions.  The  fourth  of 


260  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

these  idols  he  calls  the  ''idols  of  the  theater,"  by  which 
he  means  the  presuppositions  and  prejudices  that  come 
through  the  influence  of  current  systems  of  thinking  which 
are  not  real,  but  ' '  stage  plays,  representing  worlds  of  their 
own  creation  after  an  unreal  and  scenic  fashion,"1  e.g., 
the  fear  of  socialism. 

Bacon  insists  that  all  such  obstacles  to  learning  shall  be 
cleared  away,  especially  all  the  scholastic  philosophy  which 
is  made  of  words  and  has  no  genuine  relation  to  the  truth 
of  nature.  In  this  cleared  ground  man  must  begin  in 
humility,  reverence,  and  charity  to  work  for  that  genuine 
knowledge  which  is  to  relieve  the  sorrows  and  distresses 
of  men,  to  do  away  with  darkness,  and  to  purify  the  under- 
standing of  the  race. 

The  further  study  of  the  principle  of  induction  does  not 
concern  us  here.  Bacon  fought  for  it  valiantly,  albeit  in 
a  compromising  way.  He  failed  to  establish  it  as  the 
working  method  of  science.  He  made  a  real  impression 
upon  the  age,  but  his  method  seemed,  even  to  those  who 
were  already  using  it,  far  too  revolutionary  and  imprac- 
tical. 

In  fact,  Bacon's  induction  is  very  imperfect.  An  in- 
ductive method  is  not  wholly  inductive  in  a  literal  sense ;  it 
is  but  a  different  mode  of  stating  the  general  deductive 
method.  But  Bacon  had  little  room  for  old  knowledge; 
his  "idols"  included  practically  all  old  materials,  and 
these  he  would  ruthlessly  sweep  away. 

He  did  not  recognize  the  value  or  place  of  hypothetical 
thinking  in  science.  He  supposed  that  collecting  of  data 
and  organization  of  knowledge  could  go  on  in  a  factual 
way  without  thinking,  without  a  guiding  program  in  the 
mind,  without  presuppositions  of  any  kind.  He  did  not 
know  that  a  mind  does  not  work  when  it  is  empty.  He 

i"Novum  Organum,"  Section  68. 


THE  NEW  METHOD  OF  BACON     261 

did  not  realize  that  the  one  great  difference  between  scho- 
lastic philosophy  and  inductive  science  consists  in  this: 
in  scholastic  philosophy  the  presuppositions  of  knowledge 
are  held  dogmatically  as  elements  in  a  fixed  system,  while 
in  inductive  science  the  presuppositions  are  held  as  hy- 
potheses subject  always  to  the  test  of  critical  experiences. 
Bacon  failed;  but  he  began  a  task  that  still  persists 
through  the  ages.  Meanwhile  his  failure  throws  the 
school-world  back  upon  the  materials  of  education  in  a 
new  and  more  complete  sense.  There  is  nothing  now  left 
to  do,  but  to  sift  out  these  materials  and  use  the  best  that 
can  be  found  in  the  old  dogmatic  ways.  We  turn  to  these 
processes  of  sifting.  May  we  here  find  the  clue  to  the 
eventual  solution  of  our  problem? 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

SIFTING   THE   MATERIALS   OF   EDUCATION 

THE  problem  of  method  in  scientific  progress  or  in  edu- 
cation is  rather  too  abstract  to  interest  many  people  long. 
The  search  for  method,  or  for  methods,  seems  remote,  un- 
real, academic.  Practical  men  soon  give  over  this  search 
and  turn  their  energies  to  the  concrete  aspects  of  a  prob- 
lem, usually  to  the  handling  of  the  materials  that  are  avail- 
able. Hence  the  solution  of  most  of  our  problems  has 
been  practical,  and  therefore  materialistic,  i.e.,  in  terms  of 
materials,  rather  than  methodical,  theoretical,  and  illu- 
minating. But  we  have  already  seen  that  the  masses  of 
materials  available  for  education  had  grown  too  great  for 
any  one  individual  to  master,  or,  indeed,  for  any  one  sys- 
tem to  encompass.  Hence  those  who  once  again  turn  to 
the  materials  of  education  for  their  answer  to  the  prob- 
lems of  the  age  are  compelled  to  begin  a  process  of  sifting 
their  materials,  selecting  those  which  seem  most  worth 
while,  and  most  likely  to  fit  the  needs  of  the  educational 
situation  as  they  conceive  it. 

Let  us  note  at  once,  however,  that  the  process  of  choos- 
ing materials  is  something  more  than  the  mere  taking  of 
certain  sorts  and  of  leaving  the  rest.  It  involves  the  more 
or  less  consciously  held  presupposition  of  a  point  of  view, 
a  conception  of  aim  and  means;  so  that,  despite  himself, 
the  most  practical  man  inevitably  shows  attitudes,  outlooks 
or  prejudices,  and  methods, — even  method, — in  the  choice 
of  his  materials.  The  difference  between  the  practical 
man  and  the  theoretical  man  is  simply  this :  the  theoretical 

262 


SIFTING  THE  MATERIALS  OF  EDUCATION      263 

man  knows  what  his  theory  is,  and  is  therefore  in  a  posi- 
tion to  criticize  and  correct  it;  the  practical  man  does  not 
know  what  his  theory  is  (though  he  has  one,  implicitly,  at 
least),  and  therefore  he  cannot  criticize  his  attitude  to- 
ward his  problem  by  the  mistakes  in  his  practice.  Neither 
can  the  latter  criticize  his  practical  mistakes  by  appeal  to 
any  more  ultimate  theoretical  understanding.  He  is  lost 
in  the  mazes  of  traditional  practice;  he  is  isolated  in  his 
own  fixed  habits.  He  can  merely  fall  back  from  one  habit 
to  another. 

Still,  for  very  insistent  reasons,  the  world  turns  from 
the  theoretical  man  and  follows  the  practical  man.  So 
it  came  about  in  the  seventeenth  century  that  the  work 
of  Bacon  was  largely  ignored.  The  problem  of  scientific 
method  seemed  very  remote  from  reality,  even  as  it  does 
still.1  The  problem  of  finding  satisfactory  educational 
materials  that  would  serve  the  purposes  of  the  age  seemed 
much  nearer  to  reality  and  to  practical  common  sense  than 
the  search  for  a  new  method.  The  seventeenth  century 
becomes  a  period  of  sifting  and  organizing  materials;  but, 
as  we  have  already  noted  and  as  we  shall  later  see,  this 
sifting  and  organizing  process  carries  much  farther  than  is 
at  first  foreseen. 

Historic  Basis  of  this  Sifting  Process. — We  have  al- 
ready seen  that  during  the  Renaissance  three  rather  dis- 
tinct aspects  of  the  new,  modern  world  came  into  prom- 
inence. These  three  aspects  were:  first,  that  inner,  emo- 
tional, and  personal  world  of  joy  of  living  in  the  present 
which  found  its  fulfilment  and  its  support  in  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics;  second,  the  outer  world  of  human  life,  the 
society  that  is  all  about  us,  as  over  against  the  deferred 
heavenly  society  of  medieval  promise;  third,  the  new 
world  of  external  physical  nature,  revealed  even  more 

i  The  present  war  seems  to  be  making  research  more  real. 


264  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

wonderfully  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  means  of  the 
telescope  and  microscope.  These  three  aspects  of  ex- 
perience seem  to  have  stood  forth  rather  distinctly  in  the 
full  flush  of  the  Renaissance.  They  seem  to  be  fairly  dis- 
tinguishable in  a  practical  way,  even  in  ordinary  lan- 
guage, and  they  are  capable  of  becoming  the  bases  of  the 
sifting  and  organizing  of  the  constantly  increasing  masses 
of  educational  materials. 

That  is  to  say,  in  the  seventeenth  century  three  rather 
distinct  types  of  educational  program  arose,  each  basing 
its  claims  to  preference  upon  the  worth  of  the  kind  of 
educational  materials  proposed.  One  group  held  that  the 
problems  of  education  in  this  new  age  could  best  be  solved 
by  a  school  curriculum  made  out  of  the  materials  of  the 
classics;  a  second  insisted  that  the  conception  of  school 
connotes  a  certain  bookishness  which  has  been  too  often 
confused  with  education,  whereas  the  only  sure  and  fun- 
damental materials  of  education  are  to  be  found  in  the 
actual  experiences  of  living  among  men,  or  in  the  study 
of  those  vital  subjects  which  mean  something  to  men  of 
affairs  and  which  have  not  yet  become  lifeless  by  being 
incorporated  into  the  curriculum  of  the  school;  and  a 
third  group  found  the  clue  to  all  worthy  educational  effort 
in  the  realities  of  physical  nature,  as  opposed  to  the  ver- 
balisms and  pedantries  of  the  schools  and  the  artificialities 
of  the  social  world  in  general. 

Each  of  these  parties  put  its  emphasis  upon  a  selected 
and  typical  material.  In  that  sense,  each  was  material- 
istic. That  is  to  say,  neither  of  these  programs  avowedly 
raises  the  question  of  method.  To  this  extent  they  are  all 
at  one  with  the  materialism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  we 
must  not  fail  to  note  that,  although  the  upholders  of  these 
various  programs  did  not  seem  to  realize  the  fact,  this 
very  principle  of  selection  of  certain  materials  eventually 


CLASSICAL  MATERIALISM  265 

does  throw  the  whole  problem  of  educational  progress  back 
into  the  field  of  method.  That  is  to  say,  the  only  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  materials  is  in  appeal  to  funda- 
mental method.  This  will  be  the  great  gain  from  this 
period  of  partisanship.  At  this  earlier  time,  however,  the 
emphasis  is  all  upon  types  of  material.  Education  is  ma- 
terialistic, just  as  it  was  in  the  Middle  Ages;  the  liberat- 
ing and  illuminating  effects  of  modern  theory  have  not 
yet  been  felt.  "We  must  now  consider  these  three  types 
of  materialism  in  some  detail. 

(A)    CLASSICAL   MATERIALISM,   OB   HUMANISTIC   REALISM 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  fine  realities  and  finer  hopes 
of  the  Renaissance  were  slowly  destroyed  through  the 
growth  of  that  seemingly  inevitable  literalism  and  pedan- 
try of  the  later  period,  the  period  of  the  narrower  human- 
ism. We  have  seen  how  all  the  genuine  life  of  the  classics 
escaped  under  the  influence  of  this  degenerative  process, 
until  nothing  was  left  of  that  original  beauty  and  promise 
but  the  vocabulary  of  Cicero.  Out  of  all  the  world  of 
wealth  of  classical  antiquity  nothing  remained  but  the 
verbalisms  of  a  Latin  grammar  based  on  a  single  authority. 
This  was  the  absolute  end  of  reality;  it  was  the  apotheosis 
of  the  meaningless  and  the  unreal.  But  of  course  such 
devitalizing  tendencies  cannot  forever  control  human  ac- 
tivities; there  is  too  much  real  beauty  and  life  and  light 
in  the  classics  for  such  a  fate. 

Realism  versus  Verbalism. — Something  of  the  concep- 
tion of  the  earlier  Renaissance  was  bound  to  be  restored. 
The  delusion  that  the  purpose  of  education  was  the  form- 
ing of  young  Ciceros  was  bound  to  run  its  course.  It  had, 
indeed,  shortly  run  its  full,  destructive  course.  In  its 
place  there  was  now  to  come,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
that  fine  and  noble  conception  that  men  may  come  most 


266  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

fully  to  know  themselves,  their  own  period  of  history,  and 
their  own  proper  places  in  the  world,  by  rising  into  the 
present  through  the  mastery  of  that  most  human  chapter 
in  all  history — the  period  of  classical  antiquity.  This 
could  be  done  most  satisfactorily,  of  course,  through  the 
mastery  of  the  inner  life  and  spirit  of  the  classical  litera- 
tures. Such  a  conception  had  a  secure  justification,  too. 
The  new  age,  as  we  have  seen,  was  more  and  more  com- 
plex in  all  directions, — industrial,  political,  religious,  and 
intellectual.  It  seemed  impossible  at  the  time  to  grasp 
enough  of  these  divergent  complexities  to  make  possible 
a  real  mastery  of  the  immediate  age.  Some  other  method 
of  mastery  seemed  necessary.  The  classic  world  seemed 
to  furnish  this  clue.  The  ancient  world  was  quite  as  com- 
plete in  its  essential  humanity  as  the  modern;  but  at  the 
same  time  that  ancient  world  was  much  simpler  in  detail, 
less  distracted.  It  seemed  not  impossible  that  a  real  un- 
derstanding of  the  essentially  human  (which  would  open 
the  way  to  a  mastery  of  the  present)  could  best  be  found 
in  those  older  literatures,  provided  they  were  studied  for 
the  sake  of  the  life  that  was  in  them,  for  the  sake  of  an 
acquaintance  with  the  rich  life  of  the  Greeks  and  Ko- 
mans,  rather  than  for  the  working  out  of  endless  gram- 
maticisms. 

That  is  to  say,  if  the  classic  materials  could  once  more 
become  real,  they  could  once  again  bring  us  to  humanity, 
just  as  they  originally  grew  out  of  humanity.  So  we  come 
to  that  new  period  in  classical  education,  the  period  of 
classical  realism  as  opposed  to  the  period  of  classical  ver- 
balism. Literatures  must  be  read  for  their  revelations 
of  life,  for  their  setting  forth  of  the  universal  humanity, 
and  not  for  their  use  as  illustrating  pedantic  abstractions 
in  grammar.  It  is  the  living  content  of  the  classics,  not 
their  abstract  form,  that  makes  them  the  supreme  ma- 


CLASSICAL  MATERIALISM  267 

terials  for  educational  purposes.  Greek  and  Latin  gram- 
mar must  no  longer  be  allowed  to  keep  the  needy  world 
from  the  nourishment  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  classical 
literatures. 

Leaders  of  the  New  Movement. — After  Erasmus  (1456- 
1536),  who  was  always  an  opponent  of  the  narrowing 
tendencies  in  education,  but  who  lived  before  the  times 
of  this  realistic  movement,  the  two  great  names  in  the 
newer  developments  of  this  broader  humanism  are  Rabe- 
lais and  John  Milton.  Rabelais  was,  indeed,  but  a  little 
later  than  Erasmus, — that  is,  he  was  born  in  1483  and  died 
in  1553.  He  was  not  a  teacher  in  the  schools;  he  was  a 
monk,  a  lecturer  on  anatomy,  a  physician,  and  a  writer. 
He  is,  of  course,  best  known  as  a  writer.  His  satires  had 
tremendous  influence.  His  "Pantagruel"  and  "Gargan- 
tua"  are  bold  and  novel  characterizations  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lived.  But  Rabelais  was  himself  not  a  wholly 
liberated  man.  We  have  spoken  of  this  period  as  being 
still  predominantly  materialistic.  Rabelais  shows  this 
clearly.  He  was  a  violent  opponent  of  the  scholastic  ver- 
balisms that  made  up  the  education  of  his  period;  he  sat- 
irized unmercifully  the  education  that  could  turn  out  such 
an  utter  failure  as  ' '  Gargantua. "  Yet  in  his  whole  proc- 
ess of  reeducation  Rabelais  never  gets  away  from  the  books. 

John  Milton  (1608-1674)  is  the  truest  representative 
of  this  realistic  movement.  His  "Tractate  on  Education," 
published  in  1644,  sets  forth  in  striking  fashion  the  best 
educational  ideals  of  the  age  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
classical  tradition.  Milton  was  the  poet  of  the  revolution 
in  England  and  was  in  sympathy  with  most  of  the  ideals 
of  the  revolution.  But  in  the  midst  of  the  revolutionary 
period  he  was  compelled  to  turn  from  literature  to  school- 
keeping.  He  was  a  master  of  a  small,  private  school  for 
seven  years,  and  he  was  able  to  do  wonders  in  the  way 


268  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  inculcating  learning  into  his  select  pupils.  Like  certain 
modern  writers,  however,  he  generalizes  his  experience  a 
little  too  conclusively  when  he  insists  that  his  method  of 
teaching  would  prevent  the  waste  of  seven  or  eight  years 
now  spent  merely  in  "scraping  together  so  much  miserable 
Greek  and  Latin,"  for  in  that  time  he  would  give  to  boys 
"a  complete  and  generous  education,  which  fits  a  man  to 
perform  justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  of- 
fices both  private  and  public  of  peace  and  war."  That  is 
to  say,  Milton  assumes  all  too  readily  that  any  teacher 
can  do  with  any  pupils  what  he  did  with  his  few  select 
pupils.  But  that  is  not  his  most  grievous  error.  He,  also, 
like  Kabelais,  clings  to  the  books,  and  to  the  Latin  and 
Greek  books.  He  despises  all  the  modern  movements  in 
education,  such  as  those  represented  by  Comenius,  etc., 
except  this  one  movement  to  transform  the  teaching  of 
the  classics.  He  wants  to  escape  from  words,  from  the 
"asinine  feast  of  sow-thistles  and  brambles,"  to  real 
things;  but  the  real  things  must  come  through  the  Greek 
and  Latin  literatures  in  which  agriculture,  architecture, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  subjects  worth  studying  were  treated 
masterfully  by  the  authorities  of  old,  only  they  must 
come  as  pleasant  occupations  from  which  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  "drive  our  dullest  and  laziest  youth,  our  stocks  and 
stubs  .  .  .  from  the  infinite  desire  of  such  a  happy  nur- 
ture." 

The  Outcome  of  Classical  Materialism. — We  must  take 
leave  of  the  subject  at  this  point  for  the  present.  We  shall 
come  upon  it  again  at  a  later  time.  We  shall  then  see 
something  of  the  tragedy  of  the  story  of  the  classics.  Per- 
haps it  is  the  heritage  of  the  thousands  of  years  of  use 
as  materials;  maybe  it  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  clas- 
sical tradition;  whatever  the  cause,  the  classics  seem  to 
remain  fixed  in  their  seventeenth  century  aloofness.  Nat- 


SOCIAL  MATERIALISM  2b9 

ural  science  and  psychology  have  come  to  transform  the 
world  of  experience  and  the  theory  and  practice  of  edu- 
cation; yet  the  classics  still  insist  upon  being  the  "preem- 
inent materials  of  education. ' '  There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  cer- 
tain attitude  of  mind,  a  certain  historic  orthodoxy  which 
sustains  this  classic  tradition.  But  in  an  age  when  the 
world  needs  the  sustaining  energies  of  all  the  resources  of 
humanism  it  is  a  little  bit  unhumanistic  for  the  classical 
materials  to  hold  themselves  apart  from  the  world,  de- 
manding a  special  recognition  for  their  superior  values. 

(B)     SOCIAL    MATERIALISM 

Over  against  the  humanistic  realists  who  proposed  that 
Greek  and  Latin  should  be  rescued  from  their  Ciceronian 
narrowness  and  made  to  serve  the  purposes  of  a  broad 
and  rich  modern  culture  and  an  introduction  to  the  world's 
life,  we  must  next  observe  the  representatives  of  the  some- 
what startling  doctrine  that  education  should  prepare  the 
individual  to  become  a  man  of  the  world.  Of  course  this 
emphasis  in  education  is  very  old.  Plato  and  Aristotle 
had  insisted  that  education  must  fit  men  for  their  place  in 
civic  life.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages  certain  classes  of 
society  were  recognized  as  having  peculiar  relationships  to 
human  welfare,  and  these,  who  were  to  become  the  rulers, 
were  supposed  to  receive  an  education  fitting  them  for 
their  particular  activities.  During  the  later  Middle  Ages 
and  in  the  early  modern  period  treatises  on  the  education 
of  princes,  rulers,  or  governors  were  frequently  published. 
Later,  as  monarchies  of  the  older,  absolute  order  began  to 
break  down  and  the  new  aristocracy  arose,  especially  in 
England,  the  education  of  these  new  classes  became  a  mat- 
ter of  social  concern.  Hence  the  books  on  education  be- 
gin to  concern  themselves  with  the  education  of  the  nobil- 
ity, and  later  still  the  education  of  the  gentleman  becomes 


270  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  greatest  task  of  the  state.  Even  as  late  as  the  time  of 
John  Locke  we  find  this  ideal  rather  succinctly  set  forth: 
"That  most  to  be  taken  care  of  is  the  gentleman's  calling; 
for  if  those  of  that  rank  are  by  their  education  once  set 
right,  they  will  quickly  bring  the  rest  into  order. ' ' 1 

The  Doctrines  of  Social  Realism. — But  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  saw  the  development  of  a  some- 
what broader  conception  of  public  education.  Deep  in 
the  soil  of  the  common  life  democratic  impulses  were  be- 
ginning to  show  signs  of  activity.  It  was  still  a  long  time 
until  the  world  should  be  willing  to  base  government  upon 
the  consent  of  the  governed ;  it  was  a  longer  time  until  the 
world  should  fully  recognize  that  the  stability  of  society 
rests  upon  the  intelligence  of  its  constituents.  But  these 
daring,  revolutionary  doctrines  are  beginning  to  stir  in 
impulses  under  the  soil.  The  time  is  coming  when  men  are 
not  going  to  be  satisfied  with  the  pedantries  of  the  narrow 
humanism,  any  more  than  they  are  satisfied  with  the  nar- 
row theologies  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Men  are  breaking 
away  from  the  traditions  of  the  schools;  the  very  concep- 
tion of  school  is  distasteful  to  many.  The  stupid  routine 
of  the  schoool  tends  to  make  the  boy  a  "greater  and  more 
conceited  coxcomb";  it  does  not  fit  him  for  his  world. 
Hence  there  are  those  who  insist  that  education  will  best 
do  its  work  when  it  puts  a  minimum  of  emphasis  upon 
mere  bookishness,  but  rather  sends  the  boy  out  into  the 
world  of  men  and  affairs,  into  the  experience  of  travel 
among  all  sorts  and  conditions,  bringing  familiarity  with 
a  wide  range  of  manners  and  customs,  strange  peoples, 
and  varied  conditions  of  living,  thus  tearing  the  boy  loose 
from  his  isolation  in  his  own  parish  and  his  own  age  and 
helping  him  to  get  the  experiences  and  marks  of  the  trav- 
eled man  of  the  world.  It  is  even  written  in  this  age : 

i  Locke :  "Thoughts  on  Education." 


SOCIAL  MATERIALISM  271 

How  much  the  fool  that  has  been  sent  to  roam 
Excels  the  fool  that  always  stays  at  home! 

Books  cannot  perform  this  service,  for  the  book  is  really 
the  great  means  of  dulling  the  wits,  of  formalizing  the 
mind,  of  reducing  the  whole  of  conduct  to  a  conventional 
routine.  Books  are  products  of  the  world  of  experience; 
if  they  are  worth  anything,  they  are  writ  out  of  broad  ex- 
perience and  they  cannot  be  read  profitably  without  some- 
thing of  that  same  world  of  experience  in  the  reader. 
Schools  fail  to  educate  for  the  reason  that  teachers  are 
pedants,  not  real  men,  and  they  are  sticklers  for  useless  and 
meaningless  details,  afraid  of  the  vital  breath  of  life,  afraid 
of  the  modern  problems.  No,  education  must  prepare  for 
the  "best  of  all  arts, — the  art  of  living  well";  and  this  is  a 
matter  of  life,  of  living,  rather  than  of  the  schools,  or  books, 
or  learning.  Let  us  turn,  for  a  chief  representative  of 
this  tendency,  to  Montaigne,  a  French  aristocrat,  traveler, 
and  writer. 

Montaigne  (1533-1592). — Montaigne  was  too  much  a 
man  of  the  world  to  confine  his  writings  wholly  to  educa- 
tional topics  in  the  narrower  sense.  But  he  wrote  two 
valuable  essays  on  the  subject.  These  are  his  "On  Ped- 
antry" and  "On  the  Education  of  Children."  In  these 
essays  he  sets  forth  rather  clearly  his  conception  of  educa- 
tion. He  overwhelms  the  narrow  humanism  of  his  times 
with  his  ridicule.  He  holds  that  ideas  are  more  important 
than  mere  words,  that,  indeed,  "whoever  has  in  his  mind 
a  clear  and  vivid  idea  will  express  it  in  one  way  or  an- 
other." He  holds  that  education  is  for  the  purpose  of 
forming  character,  which  alone  can  come  from  experience 
and  breadth  of  vision.  Hence  he  would  send  young  men 
abroad  early,  under  the  care  of  proper  tutors,  in  order 
that  they  may  "whet  and  sharpen"  their  wits  "by  rub- 
bing them  on  those  of  others."  Such  training  should  be- 


272  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

gin  when  the  boy  is  very  young.  The  book  he  studies 
should  be  the  book  of  society.  "I  would  have  this  the 
book  my  young  gentleman  should  study  with  most  atten- 
tion; for  so  many  humors,  so  many  sects,  so  many  judg- 
ments, opinions,  laws,  and  customs  teach  us  to  judge  aright 
of  our  own,  and  inform  our  understanding  to  discover 
its  imperfect  and  natural  infirmity." 

Montaigne  would  have  all  these  experiences  broadened 
and  deepened  by  the  study  of  what  he  calls  philosophy, 
along  with  some  of  the  older  subjects  of  the  schools;  but 
he  especially  insists  that  men  must  come  to  have  some  sort 
of  philosophy.  "Philosophy  is  that  which  instructs  us  to 
live  .  .  .  " — by  which  we  may  see  that  he  was  not  of  the 
academic  succession.  The  whole  man  calls  for  his  earnest 
care.  "It  is  not  a  soul,  it  is  not  a  body  that  we  are  train- 
ing ;  it  is  a  man,  and  we  ought  not  to  divide  him  into  two 
parts." 

Method  in  Social  Realism. — We  have  said  above  that 
the  problem  of  method  did  not  appear  in  this  seventeenth 
century  sifting  of  materials.  By  that  statement  was 
meant  that  the  real  foundations  of  method  were  not  se- 
riously sought.  Methods  of  teaching  were  discussed,  but 
these  all  practically  involve  the  application  of  old,  tradi- 
tional principles  in  some  novel  way.  Montaigne  expresses 
himself  freely  along  these  lines;  for  Montaigne  does  not 
suppose  that  the  boy  will  never  go  to  school.  He  rings  the 
changes  on  old  methods  and  makes  them  over  so  that  these 
new  social  materials  will  be  more  fully  assimilated  to  the 
real  experience  of  the  student.  He  says: 

I  would  not  only  have  the  instructor  demand  an  account  of  the 
words  contained  in  a  lesson,  but  of  the  sense  and  substance;  and 
judge  of  the  profit  he  had  made  of  it,  not  by  the  testimony  of 
his  memory,  but  by  his  own  judgment.  It  is  a  sign  of  crudity 
and  indigestion  for  a  man  to  throw  up  his  meat  as  he  swallowed 


SOCIAL  MATERIALISM  273 

it.  The  stomach  has  not  done  its  work  unless  it  has  changed  the 
form  and  altered  the  condition  of  the  food  given  to  it.  We  see 
men  gape  after  nothing  but  learning,  and  when  they  say  such  a 
one  is  a  learned  man,  they  think  they  have  said  enough. 

A  mere  bookish  knowledge  is  useless.  It  may  embellish  ac- 
tions, but  it  is  not  a  foundation  for  them.  Among  the  liberal 
studies  let  us  begin  with  those  which  make  us  free;  not  that  they 
do  not  all  serve  in  some  measure  to  the  instruction  and  use  of 
life,  as  do  all  other  things,  but  let  us  make  choice  of  those  which 
directly  and  professedly  serve  to  that  end.  If  we  were  once  able 
to  restrain  the  offices  of  human  life  within  their  just  and  natural 
limits,  we  should  find  that  most  of  the  subjects  now  taught  are 
of  no  great  use  to  us;  and  even  in  those  that  are  useful  there  are 
many  points  it  would  be  better  to  leave  alone,  and,  following 
Socrates'  direction,  limit  our  studies  to  those  of  real  utility.  The 
youth  we  would  train  has  little  time  to  spare;  he  owes  but  the 
first  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  his  life  to  his  tutor;  the  remainder 
is  due  to  action.  Many  a  time  I  have  seen  men  totally  useless  on 
account  of  an  immoderate  thirst  for  knowledge.  There  is  noth- 
ing like  alluring  the  appetite  and  affection,  otherwise  you  make 
nothing  but  so  many  asses  laden  with  books.  By  virtue  of  the 
lash  you  give  them  a  pocketful  of  learning  to  keep,  whereas  you 
should  not  only  lodge  it  with  them,  but  marry  it  to  them,  and 
make  it  a  part  of  their  very  minds  and  souls.  .  .  .  We  labor  and 
plot  to  stuff  the  memory,  and  in  the  meantime  leave  the  conscience 
and  the  understanding  empty.  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  enough  that  our 
education  does  not  spoil  us,  it  must  change  us  for  the  better. 
Some  of  our  parliaments  and  courts  admit  officers  after  testing 
them  as  to  their  learning;  others,  in  addition,  require  their  judg- 
ment in  some  case  of  law.  The  second  method  is  the  better,  I 
think.  Both  are  necessary,  and  it  is  very  essential  that  men 
should  be  defective  in  neither;  yet  knowledge  is  not  so  absolutely 
necessary  as  judgment.1 

By  the  very  nature  of  the  case  this  social  material  es- 
capes somewhat  from  the  imputation  of  materialism;  and, 

i  Montaigne :   "The  Education  of  Children." 


274  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

as  in  the  above  quotation,  Montaigne  frequently  rises  above 
the  materialistic  level.  But  still  for  the  most  part  he  is 
not  able  to  escape  the  feeling  that  education  consists  pri- 
marily in  taking  on  certain  materials.  That  is  to  say, 
while  this  doctrine  of  a  socialized  experience  is  one  of  the 
permanent  contributions  to  educational  theory  and  prac- 
tice, it  was  not  stated  in  its  final  form  by  Montaigne.  In- 
deed, as  we  shall  see,  we  are  just  now,  in  the  twentieth 
century,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  problem  of  analyzing, 
understanding,  organizing,  and  stating  the  significance 
of  social  experience  in  education. 
We  turn  next  to  a  third  type  of  material, 

(C)    SENSE    MATERIALISM,    OR   NATURAL   REALISM 

If  "the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  still  men 
begin  their  study  of  man  as  far  away  from  home  as  possi- 
ble. Of  course  all  study  of  the  world  is  really  the  study 
of  man ;  but  philosophy  went  on  for  several  hundred  years 
before  Socrates  finally  brought  it  "down  from  heaven" 
and  immediately  turned  it  to  the  study  of  humanity.  So 
in  the  same  way  all  through  these  ages  we  have  been  draw- 
ing slowly  closer  and  closer  to  the  central  problems  of 
education.  In  these  processes  of  sifting  out  the  materials 
•of  the  new  world  certain  fundamental  tendencies  appear 
which  have  profound  influence  upon  the  succeeding  de- 
velopments. Perhaps  we  should  note  here,  however,  that 
none  of  these  processes,  or  tendencies,  is  exhaustively  pre- 
sented ;  only  the  barest  outlines,  the  ' '  high  points, ' '  can  be 
suggested. 

The  New  World  of  Nature. — Despite  the  opposition  of 
the  classicists  and  the  traditionalists  generally,  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries  saw  the  gradual  accept- 
ance of  the  materials  of  physical  nature  as  a  legitimate  part 
of  the  materials  of  education.  These  materials  had  been 


SENSE  MATERIALISM  275 

unknown  during  the  Middle  Ages,  being  ignored  as  base,  or 
shunned  as  defiling.  To  be  sure,  there  had  been  the  search 
for  some  means  of  turning  base  metals  into  pure  gold,  and 
this  had  helped  much  in  the  secret  development  of  the  be- 
ginnings of  modern  science.  And  there  had  been  other 
tendencies  all  through  the  Middle  Ages  that  went  on  under 
quiet  conditions;  not  all  the  "science"  of  the  times  was 
"foolishness."  After  the  coming  of  the  Saracens  real  sci- 
ence forged  ahead  apace.  Later  the  Renaissance  released 
the  minds  of  men  from  their  old  attitudes  toward  the  world 
of  nature  and  threw  over  all  existence  the  mantle  of  ro- 
mance and  beauty.  Human  emotions  found  a  new  means 
of  release  in  these  new  attitudes  and  stimulations,  and  the 
old  prejudices  were  broken. 

The  new  age  forced  amazing  new  resources  in  the  way 
of  knowledge  upon  the  world.  Bacon,  as  we  have  seen, 
felt  the  need  of  some  more  effective  tool  for  the  proper 
handling  of  these  new  materials  and  their  integration  with 
the  old  world  of  experience.  Some  little  progress  was 
made  in  the  forging  of  that  tool  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury; but  on  the  whole  nature  was  still  to  be  regarded  as 
a  crude  mass  of  materials,  to  be  picked  over  and  culled 
over,  like  scraps  upon  a  bargain  counter,  for  whatever  of 
incidental  interest  might  appear. 

To  be  sure,  certain  constructive  theories  began  to  make 
their  appearance.  The  created  universe,  limited  in  extent 
and  centering  in  the  earth,  was  turned  inside  out  by  the 
organizing  work  of  Copernicus  with  his  revolutionary  the- 
ory; the  telescope  and  the  microscope  were  soon  to  make 
old  theories  of  nature  and  life  utterly  untenable;  the 
threads  of  the  ancient  doctrine  of  evolution,  lost  for  two 
thousand  years,  were  rediscovered,  and  the  discovery  of 
new  tribes  of  men  made  old  theories  of  the  origin  of  hu- 
manity untenable.  The  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 


276  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

turies  were  amazingly  fruitful  in  the  accumulation  of 
facts,  the  atoms  of  knowledge ;  but  for  the  most  part  these 
facts  lacked  organization  and  coherence,  and  hence  they 
found  slight  welcome  in  the  traditional  schools.  Classical 
materialism  had  no  real  place  for  them.  "Life  must  be 
learned  from  the  books";  even  knowledge  of  the  world  of 
nature  must  still  be  sought  in  the  writings  of  Aristotle, 
the  "Master  of  those  who  know."  In  the  same  way  the 
social  realists  found  little  value  in  piling  up  stores  of  gen- 
eral information  about  the  world  of  nature.  Montaigne 
insists  that  we  should  follow  Socrates'  direction  and 
"limit  our  studies  to  those  of  real  utility." 

Hence,  if  these  new  materials  of  nature  are  to  be  in- 
cluded in  the  accepted  materials  of  education,  some  posi- 
tive argument  must  be  made  for  them.  That  much  of 
the  problem  of  method  was  rather  clearly  seen  by  the 
sense  realists,  such,  for  example,  as  Comenius.  But  just 
what  that  would  involve  of  psychological  reconstruction 
no  one,  of  course,  could  foresee.  If  these  new  materials 
are  to  be  utilized,  an  utterly  new  educational  point  of 
view  will  be  needed,  which  will  give  these  new  materials 
foundations  upon  which  to  build  and  arguments  with  which 
to  meet  the  jeers  of  the  older  materials.  This  much  is 
clear. 

The  Educational  Conception. — Here  was  not  merely  a 
new  subject  matter;  here  was  a  new  kind  of  subject  mat- 
ter. Hitherto,  since  the  days  of  Socrates,  the  prevailing 
method  of  teaching  had  been  memorizing.  To  be  sure,  the 
social  realists  had  gone  beyond  or  outside  this  endless 
task  of  memorizing;  they  had  conceived  of  education  as 
something  immediately  experienced  in  the  midst  of  travel 
and  affairs.  They  had  depended  upon  a  sort  of  intuition, 
or  social  perception,  as  the  basis  of  their  accomplishments. 
But  they  had  no  great  following  in  the  schools;  memoriz- 


SENSE  MATERIALISM  277 

ing  was  still  the  essential  pedagogical  tool  of  all  learning. 
Now  the  appreciation  of  this  new  material  of  nature 
brings  in  a  new  aspect  of  the  mind.  Francis  Bacon  had 
insisted  upon  observation  as  the  basis  of  his  inductive 
method ;  and  the  use  of  the  senses  in  this  way  as  the  main 
avenue  of  all  education  was  gradually  coming  to  recogni- 
tion. But  we  must  make  careful  note  here  that  there  had 
been  almost  no  study  of  psychology  since  the  days  of 
Aristotle,  at  least,  of  any  psychology  that  would  have  any 
real  significance  for  educational  practice.  We  must  note, 
too,  that  the  development  of  this  new  type  of  material  was 
important  not  primarily  because  it  brought  in  a  new  as- 
pect of  the  world  of  experience,  but  because  it  once  more 
forced  home  to  educational  leaders  and  reformers  the 
problem  of  method.  The  classical  materials  were  memor- 
ized; the  average  student  of  the  classics  did  not  know 
what  he  was  studying.  He  memorized  vocabularies,  gram- 
matical rules,  and,  to  a  degree,  selected  passages  from  the 
literatures ;  but  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  doing.  The 
reason  is  plain.  He  was  dealing  with  the  finished  ma- 
terials of  a  sophisticated  world,  the  concepts  of  life  worked 
out  in  the  microcosm  of  Athens  or  Rome.  He  could  not 
know  their  meanings;  he  could  only  memorize  and  retain 
the  literal  materials  until  experience  could  illuminate  or 
a  kindly  forgetfulness  erase.  Not  so  now  with  these  new 
materials  of  the  world  of  physical  nature.  These  are  not, 
at  first,  conceptual  materials  at  all;  these  are  perceptual 
materials  primarily,  and  conceptual  only  in  a  secondary 
sense,  i.e.,  after  they  have  been  worked  over  into  the  sci- 
ences. The  pupil  must  come  to  them  first  hand,  getting  the 
actual  experience  of  the  object  before  learning  some  book- 
ish definition,  i.e.,  some  reconstructed  conceptual  statement 
of  the  object;  and  he  must  get  the  language  part  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  object  in  the  process,  and  for  the  purpose 


278  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  giving  expression  to  the  common,  concrete  experience 
part.  This  sets  the  materials  of  sensation  off  from  all  other 
materials. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  the  very  movement  toward  the 
sifting  of  these  various  knowledges,  their  separation  from 
one  another,  and  their  organization  into  curricula  for  the 
schools  or  for  other  forms  of  educational  effort,  led  inevita- 
bly to  the  opening  anew  of  the  problem  of  method.  In  one 
sense  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  consideration  of  these  ma- 
terials, there  will  be  raised  for  the  first  time  the  question 
of  the  relation  of  materials  to  mental  processes.  That 
is  to  say,  for  the  first  time  the  problem  of  an  educational 
psychology  has  a  real  chance  to  appear;  for  the  first  time 
the  part  that  mind  plays  in  the  educational  process  will 
break  through  the  general  materialism  of  educational 
thinking;  and  thus  materialism  will  develop  its  own  in- 
consistencies, its  own  problems,  and  demonstrate  its  own 
insufficiency.  All  this,  of  course,  does  not  appear  at  this 
time.  Even  to  Comenius  the  problem  is  only  superficially 
present,  though  the  influence  upon  him  of  Bacon  tends  to 
make  him  feel  the  problem  more  keenly  than  any  other 
will  feel  it  for  a  century.  No,  it  takes  time  to  develop  the 
implications  of  progress.  But  little  by  little,  as  we  follow 
the  course  of  educational  thinking  through  the  next  cen- 
tury, we  shall  see  this  question  of  method  gradually  for- 
mulate itself.  What  is  the  place  of  mind,  of  mental  ac- 
tivity, in  the  educational  process?  What  attention  must 
the  teacher  pay  to  the  mind  of  the  child,  as  over  against 
the  attention  so  long  paid  to  the  materials  of  the  lessons? 
That  question,  so  commonplace  now  and  yet  even  to-day 
so  little  understood,  slowly  struggled  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  this  realistic  age  through  the  work  of  men  who  were 
not  properly  to  be  called  realists  at  all.  But  when  the  age 
had  become  aware  of  the  problem,  another  age  had  dawned, 


SENSE  MATERIALISM  279 

an  age  of  larger  minds  and  more  encompassing  compre- 
hensions. The  problem  of  materials  had  passed  into  sec- 
ondary place  for  the  real  leaders  of  educational  progress; 
the  problem  of  materials  could  never  again  be  the  central 
problem  in  education  for  any  save  those  whose  comprehen- 
sion of  the  movements  of  human  thought  had  stopped  with 
the  achievements  of  the  seventeenth  century.  To  be  sure, 
even  yet,  as  we  shall  see,  the  belated  upholders  of  old 
partisan  programs  are  to  be  seen  and  heard  in  the  land. 
It  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that  even  to-day  many 
educators  are  utterly  innocent  of  any  comprehension  that 
there  has  been  any  fundamental  progress  since  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  Like  "Uncle  Jasper"  reiter- 
ating in  his  pious,  illiterate  way,  ''The  sun  do  move," 
these  belated  representatives  of  honorable  traditions  still 
may  be  heard  to  cry,  ' '  The  only  genuine  materials  of  edu- 
cation are  the  old  theories  I  believe  in ! " 

Meanwhile  the  world  has  moved  on  from  the  discussion  of 
materials  to  the  examination  of  the  more  insistent  and  far 
more  important  problems  of  the  various  methods  that  un- 
derlie these  various  materials,  even  to  the  larger  and  more 
inclusive  problem  of  method  in  its  largest  sense :  "What  is 
the  actual  nature  of  human  experience,  and  what  are 
the  fundamental  processes  by  which  the  immature  expe- 
rience of  the  child  becomes  the  world-experience  of  the 
cultivated  and  disciplined  adult, — the  man  "with  power  on 
his  own  self  and  on  the  world"?  This  problem  of  the 
nature  of  experience  arises  out  of  these  conflicts  of  ma- 
terials. The  mind  of  man  is  not  the  pawn  of  some  fancier 
of  materials,  however  noble  his  materials  may  be.  There 
is  a  larger  future  for  the  race  than  that  of  bowing  forever 
at  the  shrine  of  old  materials.  The  spirit  of  man  is  cre- 
ative, and  passes  on  from  age  to  age  to  the  construction 
of  new  worlds  of  freedom. 


280  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  Sense  Materialists.— Wolfgang  Ratke  (1571-1635) 
was  one  of  the  first  leaders  in  this  educational  movement. 
His  interest  was  not  wholly  directed  toward  these  mate- 
rials of  the  senses,  however.  Rather  he  illustrates  the 
point  just  made,  that  the  mind  needs  not  only  new  ma- 
terials for  its  larger  structures,  but  also  new  methods. 
Ratke  is,  therefore,  a  follower  of  Bacon  on  the  side  of 
method,  rather  than  on  the  side  of  materials.  He  was  very 
much  interested  in  the  subject  of  language;  and  he  con- 
ceived of  language  as  a  tool  of  the  mind,  which  might, 
under  wrong  conditions,  become  the  master  of  the  mind, 
just  as  Bacon  had  set  forth  in  his  illustration  of  the  idols 
of  the  theater  or  of  the  forum,  in  which  he  points  out  how 
old  words  and  old  systems  of  thought  bind  men's  minds  to 
the  past.  Accordingly,  Ratke  would  have  all  instruction 
carried  on  in  the  vernacular,  partly  for  the  sake  of  social 
and  national  uniformity,  but  also  partly  for  the  sake  of 
making  sure  that  all  the  children  of  the  nation  should 
have  a  real  contact  with  the  arts  and  the  sciences.  It  is 
very  important  to  note  here  that  these  new  movements  in 
the  sciences  come  in  along  with  the  large  developments  of 
the  modern  languages,  as  if,  in  establishing  the  new  un- 
derstanding of  the  world,  the  mind  must  have  a  new  in- 
strument of  statement  and  organization.  The  escape  from 
Latin  into  the  modern  vernaculars  is  one  of  the  notable 
achievements  of  the  human  mind,  for  it  meant  escape  from 
these  "idols"  of  Bacon  (at  least,  in  large  part)  into  the 
freedom  of  the  modern  scientific  attitude. 

Ratke  found  the  roots  of  method  in  nature;  psychology 
had  not  yet  developed  the  true  foundations  of  the  teach- 
ing processes.  But  the  search  for  method  is  one  of  the 
true  reasons  for  the  ultimate  development  of  psychology; 
psychology  is  the  answer  to  the  demand  of  the  growing 
experience  of  the  world  for  a  clearer  understanding  of  its 


SENSE  MATERIALISM  281 

own  nature.  So,  for  example,  when  Ratke  presumably 
writes:  "Since  nature  uses  a  particular  method  proper 
to  herself  with  which  the  understanding  of  man  is  in  a 
certain  connection,  regard  must  be  had  to  it  also  in  the 
art  of  teaching,  for  all  unnatural  and  violent  or  forcible 
teaching  and  learning  is  harmful  and  weakens  nature," 
we  need  to  see  that  nature  here  does  not  mean  some  aspect 
of  the  world  completely  divorced  from  man.  It  includes 
man;  and  when  men  begin  to  find  method  in  nature,  it 
will  not  be  long  before  they  also  begin  to  find  it  in  human 
experience;  and  that  will  give  us  psychology. 

Comenius  (1592-1670)  is,  however,  the  greatest  of  these 
advocates  of  the  new  materials  of  nature  as  the  basis  of 
education.  A  sad  fate,  however,  a  fate  such  as  that  which 
befell  Aristotle,  kept  Comenius  from  having  any  large 
influence  upon  his  own  or  the  immediately  succeeding 
generations,  except  in  reference  to  the  teaching  of  the 
languages,  with  which  we  are  not  concerned  here.  The 
writings  of  Comenius  were  almost  completely  unknown 
until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  they 
were  brought  to  light.  His  influence  was  almost  wholly 
personal,  therefore,  and  extended  but  little  beyond  the 
circle  of  his  own  contacts.  He  was  called  to  England,  as 
we  have  seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  but  for  a  purpose 
somewhat  remote  from  our  present  interest.  His  concep- 
tion of  education,  as  we  can  now  see  from  his  writings, 
was  very  large  and  inclusive;  but  while  largely  scientific, 
it  was  not  wholly  divorced  from  his  older  theological 
training.  If  his  writings  had  become  part  of  the  current 
educational  discussion,  doubtless  the  general  course  of 
educational  history  would  have  been  different.  But  they 
did  not.  They  came  into  the  stream  of  educational 
thought  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Hence 
any  full  account  of  his  work  would  really  belong  to  that 


282  DEMOCKACY  IN  EDUCATION 

period,  rather  than  to  the  period  in  which  he  lived.  But 
by  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  general  con- 
ception of  a  method  according  to  nature  was  coming  in 
from  other  sources.  Comenius  did  but  strengthen  that 
which  was  being  done  by  other  forces. 

To  be  sure,  Comenius  had  been  a  prolific  writer  of  text- 
books for  the  schools;  and  these  texts  were  largely  used, 
in  Germany  especially.  But  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
texts  dealing  with  the  teaching  of  the  languages,  not  with 
the  materials  of  nature.  There  is  a  real  stream  of  influ- 
ence reaching  from  the  interest  in  nature  which  Comenius 
had  developed  to  the  Real-schulen  of  Germany  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  first  of  these,  founded  at  Berlin  in 
1747  by  Hecker,  included  drawing,  history,  geography, 
geometry,  arithmetic,  mechanics,  and  architecture  in  its 
curriculum,  as  well  as  the  Latin  language,  writing,  religion, 
and  ethics.  Toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
these  schools  became  centers  of  naturalism  in  education, 
under  the  general  influence  of  the  work  of  Rousseau. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

EDUCATION  AS  A  PROCESS  OF  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE 

WE  have  seen  that  the  programs  of  the  realists,  empha- 
sizing, as  they  did,  various  types  of  subject  matter,  were 
not  permanently  satisfactory.  This  was  for  the  reason, — 
as  we  can  now  see, — that  they  leave  out  of  account  the 
most  important  aspect  of  the  whole  program — mind,  the 
mind  of  the  learner.  None  the  less,  these  suggested  solu- 
tions raise  this  central  problem  of  education  into  at  least 
partial  view;  they  make  the  world  face  seriously  the  pos- 
sibilities that  lie  in  materials  of  various  sorts;  and  they 
show  conclusively  in  their  outcome  that  the  problem  of 
education  can  never  be  solved  by  any  sort  of  materials 
alone.  That  is  to  say,  the  sifting  of  materials  shows  both 
the  importance  of  various  kinds  of  materials  and  the  fail- 
ure of  any  one  kind  to  solve  the  problem. 

But  this  sifting  of  experience  shows  another  important 
fact,  viz.,  that  these  materials  themselves  have  various 
mental  values  and  significances.  This  raises  more  impor- 
tant questions.  What  is  the  real  nature  of  materials? 
What  is  the  real  nature  of  the  mental  processes  that  are 
involved  in  education  and  that  seem  to  be  able  to  handle 
these  various  types  of  materials?  And  what  is  the  real 
nature  of  education  itself.  Is  it,  after  all,  the  taking  on  of 
some  sort  of  material?  Is  it  memorizing  set  lessons?  Is 
it  assimilating  experiences?  Is  it  observing  natural  phe- 
nomena? Is  it  absorption  of  fine  ideals?  Is  it  doing  of 
disagreeable  tasks?  Is  it  an  effort  to  save  the  soul?  And 
finally  there  must  emerge,  soon  or  late,  this  more  pressing 

283 


284  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

problem:  Is  it  possible  to  analyze  and  relate  and  under- 
stand the  various  types  of  mental  processes  involved 
in  dealing  with  these  various  types  of  materials  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  use  of  these  processes  in  the  actual  prac- 
tice of  teaching?  Of  course  we  are  to  understand  that 
these  questions  and  problems  emerge  slowly  from  the  great 
bulk  of  the  unanalyzed  problem.  But  we  are  to  under- 
stand that  such  problems  as  these  were  actually  involved 
in  the  developments  through  which  we  are  passing.  One 
thing  is  sure :  the  race  has  won  its  intellectual  triumphs  so 
far  only  by  means  of  the  most  strenuous  efforts.  These 
struggles  of  the  centuries  are  not  academic,  forced,  or  inci- 
dental sports ;  they  are  the  most  vital  struggles  of  the  race. 
By  these  struggles  the  race  has  won  its  way  out  of  some  of 
the  ignorance  of  the  folkway  world,  out  of  the  inertia  of 
old  habits  and  traditions,  out  of  the  systems  built  in  earlier 
and  less  intelligent  times,  into  something,  at  least,  of  knowl- 
edge, of  intelligence,  of  farther-sighted  control  of  the  con- 
ditions of  living.  None  of  these  systems  is  final ;  they  are 
all  parts  of  the  lasting  conversation  by  which  the  world 
has  been  arguing  its  way  out  into  the  hitherto  unexplored 
regions  of  human  nature  and  making  itself  acquainted  with 
life  and  the  world.  That  task  is  not  yet  finished ;  the  con- 
versation is  still  far  from  being  concluded;  and  certainly 
the  seventeenth  century  must  not  be  accepted  as  giving 
the  final  touches  to  human  progress. 

The  Reaction  from  Materialism. — None  the  less,  the 
seventeenth  century  offered  certain  striking  arguments  and 
certain  fundamental  problems  to  the  conversation.  Mate- 
rialism in  education  did  not  satisfy.  In  the  reaction  that 
followed  its  full  exploitation  the  argument  swung  far  to 
the  other  side,  and  we  find  ourselves  once  more  dealing 
with  one  other  aspect  of  the  problem  of  method.  If,  the 
question  may  be  supposed  to  run,  no  particular  sort  of 


EDUCATION  AS  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE      285 

i 

material  nor  all  sorts  put  together  are  finally  satisfactory, 
wherein  lies  their  unsatisf aetoriness  ?  That  is  to  say,  how 
is  the  decision  against  these  highly  recommended  materials 
reached  ?  Who  is  the  judge ;  and  what  rights  has  this  judge 
in  the  case?  The  answer  is  that  the  mind  is  the  judge. 
But  this  changes  the  whole  nature  of  the  problem.  If  the 
mind  is  to  determine  what  shall  satisfy  and  what  shall  not, 
what  is  to  become  of  all  these  old  materials  of  education? 
What  is  to  become  of  old  systems  and  institutiops  ?  The 
answer  is  sweeping  enough.  These  must  all  go,  for  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  the  Enlightenment,  the  Aufklarung,  the 
clearing  up  of  all  old,  dark  places  and  the  opening  of  all  the 
world  to  the  white  light  of  truth!  In  such  a  time  as  this 
the  stage  must  be  swept  clean.  The  mind  is  henceforth  to 
make  its  own  world  and  to  build  its  foundation  upon  evi- 
dent realities.  Descartes  (1596-1650)  began  it  by  calling 
all  old  experience  into  question  and  attempting  to  get  a 
secure  basis  in  his  own  criticised  experiences.  By  doubt- 
ing he  laid  waste  all  the  past,  even  his  own;  then  by 
thought  he  began  to  build  his  new  world.  One  thing  he 
could  not  doubt — that  he  was  able  to  doubt.  On  this  he 
builds.  "Cogito,  ergo  sum!"  Nothing  was  to  be  taken 
into  his  new  world  merely  because  it  had  been  in  the  old 
world;  it  was  stand  the  test  of  critical  doubt.  So  the 
mind  comes  into  its  own ! 

But  in  England  the  process  went  even  further.  John 
Locke  began  that  long  movement  of  critical  analysis  which, 
carried  on  through  Berkeley  and  Hume,  first  called  all  ex- 
ternal existence  into  question  and  reduced  the  whole  world 
to  idea,  the  construct  of  the  mind ;  and  which  finally  called 
the  mind  itself  into  question  and  reduced  it  to  a  mere 
chain  of  associations.  All  the  sacred  symbolisms,  ideas, 
and  institutions  of  the  past  were  dissolved  in  this  crucible 
of  critical  analysis.  Theoretically,  nothing  was  left  of  the 


286  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

substance  of  the  world.  Theoretically,  this  was  a  com- 
plete house-cleaning,  in  which  the  old  materials  were  swept 
out,  leaving  the  house  clean  and  bare. 

Education  as  Discipline  of  the  Mind. — But  practically, 
of  course,  men  went  on  living.  It  was  certainly  a  time  of 
social,  political,  and  industrial  reconstruction;  systems 
were  crashing  on  every  hand.  Still  men  must  go  on  liv- 
ing, and  young  people  must  go  on  growing  up  and  getting 
ready  to  live.  What  sort  of  education  shall  be  effective 
in  a  period  such  as  this  ?  How  can  the  evils  of  a  transition 
period  be  overcome?  What  shall  take  the  place  of  the 
substantial  materials  of  the  old  world-systems?  What,  in- 
deed, but  that  one  thing  which  even  Hume  could  not  wholly 
dissolve — the  mind  itself !  Let  the  mind  become  the  center 
of  educational  activity ! 

In  this  way  does  Locke  overcome  the  skepticism  of  his 
own  philosophy  and  reach  a  more  secure  basis  for  the  de- 
velopment of  a  very  powerful  and  influential  educational 
theory.  The  mental  life  of  the  individual  becomes  the  all- 
important  consideration.  This  inner  life  must  be  dis- 
ciplined, habituated,  trained,  until  it  has  fitted  itself  to  the 
conditions  of  existence.  Tastes,  capacities,  endowment,  are 
all  to  be  consulted  in  this  disciplinary  procedure,  and  the 
whole  process  is  to  be  sufficiently  enjoyable  to  make  it  ac- 
ceptable to  the  pupil.  None  the  less,  Locke  sternly  de- 
clares : 

As  the  strength  of  the  Body  lies  chiefly  in  being  able  to  en- 
dure Hardships,  so  also  does  that  of  the  Mind,  and  the  great 
Principle  and  Foundation  of  all  Virtue  and  Worth  is  placed  in 
this:  that  a  Man  is  able  to  deny  himself  his  own  desires,  cross 
his  own  inclinations,  and  purely  follow  what  Reason  directs  as 
best,  though  the  appetite  lean  the  other  way.  ...  If,  therefore, 
I  might  be  heard,  I  would  advise  that,  contrary  to  the  ordinary 
way,  children  should  be  used  to  submit  their  desires  and  go  with- 
out their  Longings,  even  from  their  very  Cradles. 


EDUCATION  AS  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE      287 

The  best  education  is  that  which  trains  and  disciplines 
and  fortifies  the  mind.  To  be  sure,  certain  materials  will 
have  to  be  used;  but  these  will  not  be  selected  for  their 
own  sake,  nor  for  their  informational  or  ideal  character. 
They  will  be  selected  wholly  for  their  formal  or  formative 
values,  for  their  worth  and  use  in  forming  the  mind,  in 
disciplining  the  desires,  and  in  bringing  all  the  elements 
of  the  nature  under  the  control  of  reason.  If  mathematics 
and  grammar  are  chosen  for  these  purposes,  that  choice 
does  not  rest  on  the  same  grounds  as  would  dictate  the 
choice  of  the  same  material  by  a  classical  realist.  He 
would  choose  grammar,  for  example,  because  grammar  is 
the  gateway  into  the  world  of  literature.  Locke  would 
choose  it,  however,  because  its  nature  makes  it  a  pecul- 
iarly fine  instrument  for  forming  the  mind. 

The  Basis  of  Discipline. — At  its  best  this  doctrine  of 
mental  discipline  is  the  noblest  theory  of  education  ever 
stated.  At  its  worst,  it  is  the  most  outrageous  instrument 
for  the  deformation  of  the  child's  possibilities.  Whether 
it  shall  be  the  one  or  the  other  depends  upon  the  psycho- 
logical theory  that  surrounds  the  disciplinary  process.  A 
disciplined  mind  is  the  sort  of  mind  needed  in  facing  the 
urgencies  and  emergencies  of  the  world  of  action.  But 
there  is  present  in  the  world  a  fundamental  fallacy  of  this 
sort:  "Here  is  a  man  who  through  his  interest  in  a  cer- 
tain task,  through  his  loyalty  to  a  central  aim,  through  his 
enthusiasm  for  a  future  good,  has  secured  the  finest  sort  of 
mental  discipline ;  therefore  let  us  now  put  before  all  chil- 
dren these  same  certain  tasks,  central  aims,  and  future 
goods,  and  we  shall  thus  secure  the  same  splendid  mental 
discipline  for  all  individuals."  The  fallacy  is  one  which 
will  not  be  grasped  without  some  special  appreciation  of 
the  psychology  of  the  case.  It  is  of  the  same  sort  as  that 
made  by  the  later  humanists  when  they  tried  to  make  the 


288  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

classics  serve  as  a  universal  curriculum  and  so  brought 
about  the  development  of  Ciceronianism.  Such  fallacies 
are,  of  course,  evidences  of  a  prepsychological  age;  if  they 
exist  to-day,  they  are  survivals  from  such  an  age. 

The  more  genuine  basis  of  discipline  will  appear  in 
later  stages  of  our  discussion.  Although  the  doctrines  of 
Locke  have  been  much  disputed  and  in  large  measure  dis- 
credited ;  although  the  educational  movement  which  Locke 
fathered  became  the  most  influential  factor  in  the  develop- 
ment of  educational  practice  in  England  and  America  and 
fixed  upon  both  countries  a  conception  which,  in  its  baser 
form,  became  the  excuse  for  all  sorts  of  brutalities,  includ- 
ing the  famous  dictum  of  the  "Hoosier  Schoolmaster" 
that  "lickin*  an'  larnin'  go  together";  although  at  the 
present  time  the  greatest  educational  task  is  that  of  escap- 
ing from  the  hard  clutches  of  this  conception  of  discipline 
without  falling  over  into  the  equally  undesirable  doctrines 
of  recent  soft  pedagogy — despite  all  these  things,  this  dis- 
ciplinary doctrine  of  Locke  represents  a  real  advance  upon 
the  past,  a  genuine  stage  in  the  development  of  the  think- 
ing-out of  the  educational  problem.  For  through  Locke's 
work  educational  discussion  crosses  over  from  the  con- 
sideration of  materials  to  the  consideration  of  mind;  the 
mind  actually  enters  into  educational  discussion,  and  that  is 
a  great  gain!  To  be  sure,  this  mind  is  a  curious  sort  of 
entity;  but  it  is  here.  Despite  all  the  efforts  of  the  educa- 
tional materialists,  it  will  remain,  first  as  one  of  the  ele- 
ments to  be  taken  into  account  in  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  education,  and  finally  as  the  one  central  factor 
around  which  all  other  aspects  of  the  case  revolve. 

For  Locke  himself  the  mind  is  at  first  simply  a  clean 
surface,  a  tabula  rasa,  on  which  nothing  has  been  written, 
on  which  experience  will  slowly  write  the  story  of  life. 
This  writing  will  take  place  entirely  through  the  senses. 


EDUCATION  AS  MENTAL  DISCIPLINE      289 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  mind  which  has  not  previously 
been  in  the  senses."  In  this  the  mind  is  not  primarily 
active,  but  passive.  Learning  is  taking  on  impressions; 
mastery  comes  through  large  accumulation  of  impressions, 
as  if  bulk  of  information  should  be  so  impressive  as  to  com- 
pel respect.  There  is  little  of  feeling  that  the  mind  is  to 
have  any  creative  part  in  the  making  of  the  world.  The 
whole  of  education  is  the  formation  of  habit,  especially 
habit  of  thought.  Locke  would  have  education  be  the 
"moral  discipline  of  the  intellect."  "The  business  of 
education  is  not  to  make  the  young  perfect  in  any  of  the 
sciences,  but  so  to  open  and  dispose  their  minds  as  may 
best  make  them  capable  of  any,  when  they  shall  apply 
themselves  to  it."  Yet  there  is  a  curious  turning  of  the 
outlook  here  in  Locke's  thinking,  as  there  is  in  all  dis- 
cussions of  the  disciplinary  following.  It  is  rather  naively 
assumed  that  the  mind  can  be  put  through  these  passive 
performances  for  a  number  of  years,  during  which  these 
habits  will  have  been  built  up ;  and  that  at  some  time  un- 
determined, by  some  method  or  magic  unexplained,  the 
mind  will  become  free,  capable,  inventive,  masterful,  even 
creative.  "Would  you  have  a  man  reason  well,  you  must 
use  him  (make  him  used)  to  it  betimes,  exercise  his  mind 
in  observing  the  connection  of  ideas  and  following  them 
in  train."  For  the  purposes  of  this  habit-forming  exer- 
cise of  the  mind  nothing  is  better  than  mathematics, 
"which  therefore  I  think  should  be  taught  all  those 
who  have  the  time  and  opportunity,  not  so  much  to  make 
them  mathematicians  as  to  make  them  reasonable  crea- 
tures. ...  I  have  mentioned  mathematics  as  a  way  to 
settle  in  the  mind  a  habit  of  reasoning  closely  and  in 
train ;  not  that  I  think  it  necessary  that  all  men  should  go 
deep  into  mathematics,  but  that  having  got  the  way  of 
reasoning  which  that  study  necessarily  brings  the  mind 


290  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

to,  they  might  be  able  to  transfer  it  to  other  parts  of 
knowledge  as  they  shall  have  occasion." 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  quotations  that  though  the 
mind  rather  definitely  emerges  from  its  age-long  submerg- 
ence in  old  materials,  yet  Locke  intends  that  it  shall  have 
no  easy  time  of  it.  "I  do  say  that  inuring  children  gently 
to  suffer  some  degrees  of  pain  without  shrinking  is  a  way  to 
gain  firmness  to  their  minds  and  lay  a  foundation  for 
courage  and  resolution  in  the  future  part  of  their  lives." 
But  it  is  a  great  gain  to  have  given  the  mind  even  this  hard 
chance.  Eventually  it  will  emerge  into  full  expression. 
And  this  rather  harsh  attitude  toward  old  knowledges  and 
systems,  which  was  expressed  in  the  Enlightenment  and  in 
this  doctrine  of  discipline  in  education,  became  the  motive 
to  revolt  on  the  part  of  the  leaders  of  the  so-called  "ro- 
mantic" movement,  out  of  which  came  a  more  human,  a 
more  natural  conception  of  living  and  of  education.  This 
more  natural  ideal  of  life  and  education  found  its  most 
vigorous  expression  in  Rousseau.  To  him  we  turn  for  the 
statement  of  the  next  phase  of  this  winding  argument. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

EDUCATION  AS  NATURAL  GROWTH  FROM  WITHIN: 
ROUSSEAU 

WE  have  already  seen  that  there  has  been  a  fundamental 
conflict  all  through  history  as  to  the  real  nature  of  experi- 
ence. Two  parties  have  stood  forth  now  and  again.  The 
one  represents  the  world  as  complete,  intellectual,  factual, 
in  which  education  consists  of  taking  on  certain  of  these 
completed  intellectual  systems;  the  other  represents  the 
world  as  incomplete,  changing,  non-intellectual  at  the  be- 
ginning, and  in  which  education  consists  of  the  gradual 
development  from  within  of  an  experience  that  can  be  de- 
pended upon  to  direct  and  control  the  destiny  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  midst  of  changing  conditions.  The  former 
seems  to  have  been  illustrated  by  the  work  of  Plato,  and 
especially  by  the  structure  of  the  world  in  the  Middle 
Ages;  the  latter  seems  to  have  been  illustrated  by  the 
conceptions  of  Socrates  and  the  ideals  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity. We  also  come  upon  it  again  in  the  educational 
theory  of  Rousseau.  That  is  to  say,  the  general  bearing 
of  the  doctrines  of  Rousseau  is  much  the  same  as  the  bear- 
ing of  the  Socratic  doctrine,  or  the  simpler  Christian 
teaching  that  life  depends  upon  growth  from  within,  rather 
than  external  institutionalizing. 

The  Doctrines  of  Rousseau. — Rousseau  (1712-1778)  was 
born  into  a  world  that  was  already  beginning  to  seethe 
with  the  underground  impulses  of  revolution.  His  life 
was  one  long  struggle  to  understand  and  to  be  understood. 
He  never  experienced  anything  of  the  nature  of  what 

291 


292  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Locke  would  have  called  mental  discipline;  and  his  life 
shows  all  the  excesses  that  Locke  would  have  predicted 
from  such  a  deficient  education.  At  the  age  of  six  his 
father  read  to  him  extensively  from  silly  novels  of  the 
day.  Later  he  himself  read  some  valuable  books  which  he 
came  upon  in  a  private  library.  But  his  childhood  knew 
nothing  of  discipline ;  and  even  the  reading  of  the  Parallel 
Lives  of  Plutarch  and  other  books  of  like  sort  only  served 
to  stimulate  his  deeper  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the  world  of 
his  time  and  to  set  more  and  more  aflame  his  spirit  of  re- 
volt and  his  love  of  liberty.  Hence  as  soon  as  Eousseau 
began  to  think  for  himself  and  to  write,  he  became  a  revo- 
lutionist. Many  years  of  wandering  tended  to  intensify 
his  feelings  that  civilization  was  heartless  and  hopelessly 
corrupt.  His  earliest  writings  deal  with  the  origins  of 
this  heartlessness  and  corruption;  and  gradually  he  comes 
to  the  belief  that  the  only  hope  for  humanity  is  to  be  found 
in  a  complete  revolution  in  its  social  organization  and  its 
education.  Civilization  has  become  utterly  corrupt;  an 
artificial  education  has  been  largely  responsible  for  this. 
Civilization  must  become  natural  once  more,  and  education 
must  also  be  made  natural.  This  theory  is,  of  course,  in- 
volved in  all  sorts  of  contradictions,  but  aside  from  these 
there  still  stands  forth  a  fairly  definite  conception  of  what 
natural  education  should  be.  This  educational  doctrine  is 
set  forth  in  his  "Emile." 

There  are  four  stages  in  the  education  of  the  boy  "from 
the  moment  of  his  birth  up  to  the  time  when,  having  be- 
come a  mature  man,  he  will  no  longer  need  any  other  guide 
than  himself. ' '  These  four  stages  are : 

(1)  Infancy,  during  which  the  child  is  to  be  taken  away 
from  society  and  given  a  training  under  natural  conditions. 
His  parents  are  to  do  this  work  in  very  simple  fashion,  or 
if  his  parents  cannot  do  it,  some  tutor  who  can  gain  the 


EDUCATION  AS  NATURAL  GROWTH        293 

child's  confidence  must  be  found.     This  first  period  of  five 
years  is  given  over  to  a  purely  physical  training. 

(2)  Childhood,  covering  the  years  from  five  to  twelve, 
during  which  time  he  is  to  learn  mostly  by  experiencing  the 
consequences  of  what  he  does.     This  period  is  to  be  given 
over  largely  to  physical  education.     The  soul  must  be  kept 
fallow ;  there  should  be  no  moral  training,  no  precepts,  and 
no  preaching.     There  must  be  plenty  of  exercise,  since  the 
boy  is  getting  ready  for  the  life  of  reason,  and  "in  order 
to  think,  we  must  exercise  our  limbs,  our  senses,  and  our 
organs,  which  are  the  instruments  of  our  intelligence." 

(3)  Boyhood, — from   twelve   to   fifteen.     This    is   "the 
time  of  labor,  instruction,  and  study,"  but  limited  to  that 
which  is  merely  useful.    "Ask  questions  that  are  within 
his  comprehension,  but  leave  him  to  resolve  them.    Let  him 
know  nothing  because  you  have  told  it  to  him,  but  because 
he  has  comprehended  it  himself;  he  is  not  to  learn  science, 
but  to  discover  it.    If  you  ever  substitute  in  his  mind  au- 
thority for  reason,  he  will  no  longer  reason."    In  this 
period  the  boy  may  have  one  book — the  only  book,  it  seems, 
fitted  to  make  the  boy  reason  without  at  the  same  time  domi- 
nating his  mental  development  and  thus  destroying  his 
mental  powers.     That  book  is  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  "where 
all  the  natural  needs  of  man  are  exhibited  in  a  manner 
obvious  to  the  mind  of  a  child,  and  where  the  means  of  pro- 
viding for  these  needs  are  successively  developed  with  the 
same  facility." 

(4)  Youth, — from  fifteen  to  maturity.     This  is  the  time 
of  moral  and  religious  development.     "We  have  formed 
his  body,  his  senses,  and  his  intelligence ;  it  remains  to  give 
him  a  heart." 

In  a  fifth  part  of  "Emile"  Rousseau  sets  forth  the  edu- 
cation of  the  girl  who  is  to  become  the  wife  of  the  educated 
man.  One  quotation  will  suffice  to  show  his  attitude  here : 


294  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  whole  education  of  women  ought  to  be  relative  to  men. 
To  please  them,  to  be  useful  to  them,  to  make  themselves  loved 
and  honored  by  them,  to  educate  them  when  young,  to  care  for 
them  when  grown,  to  counsel  them,  to  console  them,  to  make  life 
agreeable  and  sweet  to  them — these  are  the  duties  of  women  at 
all  times  and  what  should  be  taught  them  from  infancy. 

That  is  to  say,  the  education  of  the  boy  is  to  be  active,  con- 
structive, individual,  and  natural ;  the  education  of  the  girl 
is  to  make  her  passive,  receptive,  and  submissive.  It  was 
an  age  of  revolution,  but  feminism  was  not  one  of  the  ele- 
ments in  the  creed  of  that  revolution. 

The  Significance  of  Rousseau. — Of  course  no  one  but  an 
absolutist  would  think  of  finding  ultimate  truth  in  Rous- 
seau. His  significance  does  not  lie  in  any  final  solution  of 
the  problem  of  education  or  social  organization,  but  in  the 
new  direction  which  he  gave  to  the  argument  and  in  the 
new  forces  which  his  energetic  presentations  uncovered  and 
released.  He  did  not  understand  children,  but  he  started 
the  whole  modern  movement  for  the  study  of  children.  He 
cut  the  world  free  from  its  old  dogmatisms  about  the  mate- 
rials of  education;  he 'brought  to  an  end  the  dominance  of 
the  doctrine  of  mental  discipline;  he  showed  that  there  is 
something  deeper  in  human  life,  and  therefore  in  educa- 
tion, than  knowledge  or  materials  or  systems  or  disciplines ; 
he  brought  back  the  world  to  something  of  the  earlier  Ren- 
aissance feeling  for  nature  and  renewed,  socially  and  edu- 
cationally, the  decadent  faiths  of  the  times  in  the  worth  of 
human  life  and  the  reality  of  the  human  soul.  All  the 
genuine  streams  of  modern  constructive  educational  think- 
ing may  trace  their  courses  back  to  Rousseau;  or,  at  least, 
one  branch  of  their  courses. 

Nature  in  the  Doctrines  of  Rousseau. — Rousseau's 
thinking  is  never  wholly  consistent.  He  uses  words  freely 
and  without  exact  meanings,  as  is  almost  inevitable  in  deal- 


EDUCATION  AS  NATURAL  GROWTH        295 

ing  with  the  mighty  aspects  of  a  great  revolutionary  epoch. 
His  thinking  is  never  conclusive ;  it  is  suggestive.  He  uses 
the  word  nature,  or  natural,  to  express  his  general  meaning 
and  purpose  in  education.  Since  we  are  on  the  eve  of  the 
great  awakening  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  won- 
derful searching  out  of  nature,  it  will  be  well  to  see  the  ways 
in  which  the  term  "nature"  is  used  in  the  second  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century. 

Rousseau  uses  the  term  "nature"  in  three  distinct  mean- 
ings. He  would  take  the  child  out  of  the  artificialities  of 
the  city  to  the  realities  of  the  country,  where  he  will  be 
close  to  nature ;  he  would  turn  from  the  artificial  organiza- 
tion of  human  life  in  the  modern  world  to  the  natural  or- 
ganization which  is  found  in  more  primitive  societies;  and 
he  would  turn  from  the  artificialities  of  intellectualistic 
knowledge,  as  found  in  books  or  in  conscious  reason,  to  the 
natural,  primitive,  instinctive,  unreasoned  impulses  and 
emotions.  Thus  we  may  see  that  to  Rousseau  nature  means, 
first,  the  external  world  of  undisturbed  conditions — such  a 
meaning  as  we  have  to-day  in  our  term  "nature-study"; 
it  means,  second,  a  certain  primitive  social  order,  such  as 
we  intend  to  convey  by  the  term  "natural  tribes,"  as  op- 
posed to  the  term  "cultured  nations";  and  it  means,  third, 
a  certain  primitive  feeling  for  life  in  the  individual,  as 
opposed  to  the  more  developed  and  sophisticated  life  of 
reason — such  a  meaning  as  we  intend  to  convey  when  we 
speak  of  a  certain  individual  as  being  "natural." 

That  is  to  say,  the  term  "nature"  was  used  by  Rous- 
seau in  such  ways  as  to  include,  first,  the  worlds  of  interest 
now  studied  by  botanists,  zoologists,  etc. ;  second,  the  worlds 
of  interest  now  studied  by  sociologists,  anthropologists,  etc. ; 
and  third,  the  worlds  of  interests  now  studied  by  psychol- 
ogists, etc.  Now  while  this  is,  in  a  measure,  due  to  the 
confusion  of  Rousseau's  thinking,  it  is  also  due  in  large 


296 

part  to  the  modern  recognition  of  the  intimate  relation- 
ships that  exist  between  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of 
humanity  and  the  whole  range  of  universal  nature.  It  is 
a  premonition  of  the  coming  of  a  new  doctrine  of  the  origin 
of  humanity.  Under  older  doctrines  of  the  creation  of  man, 
nature  might  be  related  to  humanity  in  some  remote  de- 
gree, or  in  such  a  degree  as  man  himself  chose  to  recognize 
that  relationship.  But  even  in  Rousseau's  time  the  world 
is  pressing  swiftly  forward  toward  the  new  belief  that  man 
himself  is  not  a  stranger  in  the  earth,  not  one  created  and 
put  into  the  world.  The  evolutionary  doctrine  is  not  far 
off ;  and  even  now  men  dimly  and  confusedly  feel  that  man 
is  of  the  nature  of  the  world,  a  product  of  the  universal 
life-order,  wrought  out  of  the  very  substance  of  nature  and 
intimately  related  to  that  nature  in  all  its  varied  aspects. 

But  at  any  rate,  out  from  the  influence  of  Rousseau  flow 
three  main  streams  of  human  interest,  streams  not  wholly 
unlike  those  which  flowed  forth  from  the  Renaissance — 
the  natural  sciences,  whose  field  is  nature  in  the  first  sense 
set  forth  above;  the  social  sciences,  whose  field  is  nature 
in  the  second  sense;  and  the  psychological  sciences,  whose 
field  is  nature  in  the  third  sense  set  forth  above. 

Education  will  take  each  and  all  of  these  directions. 
That  is  to  say,  just  as  in  the  post-Renaissance  period,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  various  new  aspects  of  the  world  each 
found  its  adherents  and  supporters,  and  therefore  devel- 
oped its  particular  educational  program,  so,  following  upon 
the  great  revolutionary  period  of  which  Rousseau  was, 
more  than  any  other  one  man,  the  forerunner,  the  three 
aspects  of  nature  which  Rousseau  confusedly  emphasized 
became  clearly  distinguished  and  each  became  the  central 
theme  of  educational  development.  The  psychological 
aspect  of  nature  was  selected  for  development  by  a  power- 
ful group  of  thinkers ;  the  natural  science  aspect  was  devel- 


EDUCATION  AS  NATURAL  GROWTH       297 

oped  by  another  equally  or  more  powerful  group ;  and  the 
third,  or  social  science  aspect,  was  developed  after  a  long 
interval,  but  never  perhaps  by  such  powerful  leaders. 

Soon,  therefore,  the  problem  of  competing  programs  again 
arises,  just  as  in  the  old  days  of  the  realisms.  Which  is  the 
more  important,  the  more  vital,  the  more  valuable,  science 
or  the  humanities,  chemistry  or  sociology?  We  find  our- 
selves, as  we  shall  see,  back  on  the  levels  of  the  old  material- 
istic conflicts.  There  is  almost  no  inquiry  as  to  which  of 
these  three  aspects  of  nature  suggested  by  Rousseau  is  pri- 
mary ;  each  makes  its  own  insistence.  We  see  developing  a 
definite  movement  toward  a  psychological  interpretation  of 
all  educational  problems  and  a  no  less  definite  movement, 
though  somewhat  later  in  time,  toward  making  the  materials 
of  natural  science  the  primary  element  in  education.  Soon 
the  social  sciences  will  be  clamoring  for  admission,  and  back 
of  all  these  we  see  the  old  classicists  quietly  waiting  in  ma- 
terialistic gloom  for  the  next  rising  of  their  old-time  sun. 
The  world  is  breaking  up  into  fragments;  parties  are  ap- 
pearing. Is  there  no  unifying  outlook  in  all  the  world? 

We  turn  first  to  the  developments  in  the  psychological 
direction.  But  before  taking  up  that  task  in  its  specific  as- 
pects we  shall  do  well  to  sum  up  the  argument  and  the 
achievements  to  date.  We  must  remember  our  main  thesis : 
that  the  race  is  educated  by  its  experiences;  and  also  our 
secondary  thesis:  that  history  is  mainly  an  exploration  of 
the  hidden  depths  of  human  nature.  If  we  now  look  back 
over  the  experiences  of  the  race  since  the  dawn  of  the  mod- 
ern period,  what  new  light  has  been  thrown  upon  human  na- 
ture by  these  intervening  experiences  ? 

We  shall  find  that  numerous  important  aspects  of  the 
mental  life  of  man  have  come  to  light.  Each  of  these  as- 
pects may  be  looked  upon  as  a  fragment  of  the  whole  nature 
of  man.  Later  we  shall  see  how  the  psychological  movement 


298  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  education  was  just  an  effort  to  see  the  whole  of  human 
nature,  or,  perhaps,  to  see  all  these  parts  in  relation  to,  and 
from  the  standpoint  of,  the  whole  of  which  they  seemed  to  be 
parts.  What,  then,  were  these  parts  of  human  nature  which 
had  been  slowly  uncovered  in  these  various  movements? 
The  answer  must  be  suggestive,  rather  than  conclusive  or 
complete.  But  we  may  say  that  all  the  tendencies  and 
movements  in  education — as  well  as  in  many  other  lines  of 
development — in  the  modern  period  turned  out  to  be  really 
concerned  with  finding  an  approach  to  the  mind.  Thus,  in 
the  Eenaissance  we  find  a  resurgence  of  the  feelings  which 
had  been  lost  under  the  accumulations  of  centuries  of  barren 
institutionalism.  Even  in  classic  grammar  there  is  an  em- 
phasis upon  memory  and  will  and  the  conceptual  powers. 
In  social  realism  there  is  an  emphasis  upon  certain  social 
perceptions,  or  intuitions.  In  sense  realism  there  is  an  em- 
phasis upon  the  sensory  and  perceptual  powers.  In  the 
disciplinary  conception  of  education  there  is  found  an  as- 
sumption of  a  hypothetical  mind,  with  faculties  all  existent, 
waiting  only  the  discipline  of  sustained  and  vigorous  use. 
In  the  growing  inductive  sciences  there  is  an  emphasis  upon 
judgment,  even  though  that  emphasis  was  largely  implicit. 
In  the  naturalism  of  Rousseau  there  was  an  emphasis  upon 
the  evolutionary  doctrine  of  action  and  growth,  in  which 
the  mind  was  assumed  as  a  normal  product  of  these  normal 
processes  of  development. 

Thus  we  may  see  that  the  mind  has  actually  appeared. 
But  it  has  appeared  either  as  a  complete,  though  dull  thing, 
as  in  the  doctrines  of  Locke;  or  as  a  germinal  term  in  a 
process  of  natural  growth,  as  in  the  suggestions  of  Rousseau. 
In  neither  case  does  the  need  of  a  general  psychology  ap- 
pear. 

However,  all  these  developments  point  in  one  large  direc- 
tion. Even  though  fragmentary  or  fallacious,  these  devel- 


opments  are  parts  of  one  general  trend  of  growth;  they 
are  parts  of  the  ultimate  truth.  What,  then,  is  the  whole 
truth?  What  is  the  actual  nature  of  mind?  What  is  the 
relation  of  these  various  parts  of  mental  activity  to  the 
whole  of  mental  life  ?  This  becomes  one  of  the  great  educa- 
tional questions  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Closely  related 
to  this  question,  indeed,  as  a  fundamental  aspect  of  this 
question,  come  others.  What  is  the  relationship  of  (educa- 
tional) material  to  the  mind?  How  shall  a  school  be  or- 
ganized so  that  the  mind  shall  find  its  true  significance,  its 
proper  relationship  to  the  world,  and  its  proper  develop- 
ments within  itself? 

All  these  questions,  and  many  others  within  the  .realm 
of  educational  discussion  proper  and  outside  it,  press  in 
upon  the  consciousness  of  the  eighteenth  century  after  its 
barren  years  are  over  and  its  fruitful  decades  have  come. 
Kant,  one  of  the  world's  most  constructive  thinkers,  gives 
his  life  to  these  problems.  In  his  handling  of  these  ques- 
tions the  educational  problem  definitely  and  convincingly 
becomes  a  psychological  problem,  a  problem  whose  ultimate 
or  tentative  solutions  lie  deep  in  the  determinations  of 
psychology.  We  turn  now  to  the  developments  of  this  fully 
conscious  psychological  analysis. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM  BECOMES  PSYCHOLOGICAL 

IF  we  should  now  run  back  briefly  over  our  argument,  we 
should  find  that  when  we  plunged  out  of  the  rather  fixed 
and  limited  materials  and  methods  of  social  living  and  edu- 
cation that  marked  the  Middle  Ages  into  the  more  and 
more  complicated  conditions  and  materials  of  the  modern 
period,  we  were  not  merely  facing  new  materials ;  we  were 
facing  new  kinds  of  materials  which  would,  sooner  or  later, 
make  us  face  as  sincerely  and  squarely  as  might  be  the 
whole  problem  of  method.  We  did  not  realize  that  we  were 
to  be  driven  from  trench  to  trench  in  our  efforts  to  hold 
fast  old  educational  traditions  and  methods;  we  even  felt 
that  the  methods,  the  forms,  of  civilization  were  secure,  and 
that  all  that  remained  to  be  done  was  the  gradual  organiza- 
tion of  all  new  materials  into  these  old  forms.  To  be  sure, 
we  saw  the  Renaissance  seemingly  making  things  over ;  but 
we  contented  ourselves  with  the  thought  that  it  was  merely 
bringing  back  to  earth  something  that  had  been  lost  along 
our  way.  We  saw  the  Reformation  hewing  away  at  the 
structure  of  medievalism,  and  for  a  while  we  trembled  lest 
the  whole  should  fall ;  but  we  were  reassured  presently  when 
we  saw  Luther  calmly  retract  and  recant  his  radicalism, 
and  return  to  the  secure  institutionalism  of  his  new  church. 
We  heard  for  a  while  the  voice  of  Bacon  like  "one  crying 
in  a  wilderness"  for  the  recognition  of  a  new  method  with 
which  to  meet  the  new  problems  of  the  new  period.  But 
Bacon  was  ever  an  undependable  man,  and  he  was  soon 
forgotten.  When  the  realists  appeared, — Comenius,  Mil- 

300 


THE  APPEARANCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY   301 

ton,  and  Montaigne, — with  their  emphasis  on  materials,  we 
knew  that  the  world  had  returned  to  its  sanity  and  that  the 
old  structure  of  civilization  was  safe. 

But  Descartes  alarmed  us  with  his  doubt  of  all  existence 
but  his  own  power  to  doubt,  Locke  aroused  us  with  his  dis- 
solution of  almost  all  the  solid  earth,  and  Berkeley  dismayed 
us  with  his  complete  destruction  of  the  world  we  know, — 
until  we  remembered  that  he  was  a  bishop,  and  then  we  knew 
that  it  was  merely  one  of  his  little  jokes.  But  when  Rous- 
seau undertook  to  destroy  for  us  the  very  social  order  in 
which  we  live,  and  would  insist  that  the  only  decent  educa- 
tion is  one  that  is  secured  outside  civilized  society,  we  found 
ourselves  reduced  to  the  terrible  necessity  of  facing  a  doubt 
that  has  been  with  us  through  all  this  modern  period,  a 
doubt  that  even  sometimes  faced  us  in  the  ancient  and  me- 
dieval periods — after  all,  is  this  bald  intellectualism,  this 
materialism,  this  institutionalise!  the  final  statement  of  hu- 
man life  ?  If  so,  despite  our  boast  of  being  modern,  how  do 
we  really  differ  from  the  medievals  ?  At  any  rate,  Rousseau 
has  raised  the  issue.  Politically,  the  deluge  is  upon  us ;  so- 
cially, we  have  come  to  the  breakdown  of  conventionalities ; 
educationally,  we  are  utterly  lost.  Realism,  disciplinisin, 
naturalism,  and  all  the  other  isms  are  all  about  us.  Which 
way  is  life  f  Now,  if  ever  in  the  history  of  the  race,  a  mas- 
terful mind  is  needed  to  break  through  these  conflicting 
isms,  and  to  bring  a  new  world-order,  a  new  constructive 
expression  of  the  fundamental  basis  of  living.  Perhaps 
more  than  one  mind  will  be  needed ;  but  some  one  must  be- 
gin the  task.  And  such  a  man  appeared  in  the  great  Ger- 
man philosopher,  Kant. 

Kant  (1724-1804). — It  is  too  long  a  story  to  tell  how  Kant 
undertook  to  organize  the  whole  movement  of  human 
thought  anew  and  to  defend  the  reality  of  human  culture 
against  all  its  adversaries.  But  some  little  part  of  it  must 


302  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

here  be  set  forth,  if  the  rest  of  the  story  is  to  have  real 
significance.  Several  lines  of  influence  converged  in  the 
making  of  Kant's  point  of  view.  His  training  was  in  line 
with  the  old  orthodox  tradition  in  philosophy— the  rational- 
ism of  the  school  of  Leibnitz.  Kant  had  learned  from  his 
teaching  in  this  school  that  by  the  use  of  certain  abstract 
principles  of  reason  we  can  reach  ultimate  truth.  Later 
he  had  come  under  the  influence  of  the  English  philosophy, 
especially  the  teaching  of  Hume,  and  from  that  he  had 
learned  to  doubt  the  power  of  reason  to  do  the  things 
claimed  for  it  by  the  rationalists.  Still  later  he  had  come 
under  the  influence  of  Eousseau's  naturalism  and  the  hu- 
manizing tendencies  of  the  "romantic  movement,"  as  repre- 
sented by  Lessing  and  Herder.  He  had  also  been  a  special 
student  of  the  rising  sciences.  Thus  we  can  see  that  his  ex- 
perience had  brought  him  into  contact  with  all  the  leading 
streams  of  thought  of  his  time.  In  him  they  all  converged 
and  met  and  fought  out  the  preliminary  conflict  that  was 
inevitable.  The  advances  of  humanity  along  intellectual 
lines  have  only  been  won  by  the  most  real  and  most  strenu- 
ous conflicts;  and  here  now,  in  Kant,  all  the  diverse  influ- 
ences of  the  modern  period  which  we  have  been  deviously 
following  came  to  an  issue.  But  more  than  these  main  lines 
seem  involved  here.  The  main  lines  of  philosophical  devel- 
opment converge  in  him ;  to  some  extent  the  lines  of  social 
progress,  as  shown  in  criticism  and  revolution,  are  echoed  in 
his  thinking ;  the  influence  of  the  various  enlightenments  are 
also  apparent,  and  the  long  lines  of  educational  develop- 
ment which,  as  we  have  seen,  seem  to  have  reached  immov- 
able obstacles.  All  these,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  meet  for 
the  first  time  in  Kant  and  fight  out  their  battle. 

The  answer  is  still  in  doubt.  That  answer  covers  many 
aspects  of  human  life — intellectual,  moral,  esthetic,  social, 
political,  educational,  and  religious.  We  shall  not  go  into 


THE  APPEARANCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY   303 

these.  Only  one  phase  of  the  problem  shall  claim  our  at- 
tention here.  Kant,  himself,  expressed  the  whole  signifi- 
cance of  his  contribution  to  philosophy  in  a  brief  phrase 
which  may  serve  to  show  us  our  own  pathway  through  this 
maze.  Kant  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  Middle 
Ages  astronomy  had  conceived  the  universe  as  centering  in 
the  earth ;  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  planets,  and  the  fixed  stars 
had  all  revolved  about  the  earth  as  a  center.  Then  came 
Copernicus  with  his  revolution.  The  sun  becomes  the  cen- 
ter of  a  solar  system,  and  the  earth  revolves  about  the  sun, 
as  do  also  all  the  other  planets  of  our  system.  Now  Kant 
uses  this  "Copernican  revolution  in  astronomy"  to  illus- 
trate what  he  calls  his  own  "Copernican  revolution  in 
thought."  "We  may  paraphrase  his  statements  as  follows: 

Kant's  "Copernican  Revolution  in  Philosophy." — "In 
all  discussions  of  the  nature  of  the  world  and  of  human 
experience,  hitherto,  it  has  always  been  assumed  that  the 
world  was  created  and  finished  in  a  final  form,  and  that  all 
objects  of  knowledge  exist  in  this  final  form;  and  that, 
therefore,  all  our  knowledge  comes  of  discovering  just  how 
these  finished  objects  appear.  All  our  knowledge  conforms 
to,  or  copies,  these  finished  objects.  That  is  to  say,  the  ob- 
jects of  the  world  exist  in  final  forms,  and  the  mind  in  com- 
ing to  know  these  objects  is  molded  by  them,  conforms  to 
them,  comes  to  be  like  them,  in  some  sense. 

"But  every  attempt  from  this  point  of  view  to  explain 
Low  we  can  extend  our  knowledge  beyond  the  range  of  im- 
mediate experience,  i.e.,  how  we  can  get  beyond  objects,  has 
•ended  in  failure.  Therefore  the  time  has  now  come  to  ask 
.a  critical  question :  '  Should  we  not  be  nearer  the  truth  if 
we  were  to  suppose  that  the  world  and  the  objects  of  knowl- 
edge are  not  really  finished,  but  that  in  the  process  by  means 
of  which  the  mind  becomes  acquainted  with  any  object,  the 
lObject  changes  so  as  to  fit  into  the  mind's  capacities  for 


304  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

knowing  ? '  That  is  to  say,  our  point  of  view  is  this :  The 
mind  is  a  system  of  knowing;  every  object  that  comes  into 
knowledge,  or  into  the  mind,  must  fit  into  the  mind 's  system ; 
hence  every  such  object  must  change  in  the  process  of  be- 
coming known,  and  must  conform  to  the  mind's  power  to 
know,  or  else  remain  unknown. 

"Our  suggestion  is  similar  to  that  of  Copernicus  in  as- 
tronomy, who,  finding  it  impossible  to  explain  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies  on  the  supposition  that  they 
turned  round  the  spectator,  tried  whether  he  might  not  suc- 
ceed better  by  supposing  the  spectator  to  revolve,  and  the 
stars  to  remain  at  rest.  Let  us  make  a  similar  experiment 
in  our  study  of  the  way  in  which  we  come  to  know  objects. 
If  our  minds,  our  capacities  for  knowledge,  our  perceptions, 
were  really  determined  by  the  objects  that  we  come  to  know, 
we  could  never  know  anything  beyond  the  range  of  our 
immediate  perceptions;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ob- 
jects of  sensation  and  perception  change,  are  modified  in  the 
process  of  learning,  if  they  do  conform  to  the  character 
of  our  minds,  then  the  whole  problem  is  easy." 

Well,  it  was  not  so  easy  as  Kant  supposed;  but  he  had 
found  a  real  clue  to  the  future  developments  in  philosophy, 
psychology,  and  education, — and,  indeed,  in  all  other  human 
lines.  From  this  time  forward  mind  shall  be  no  longer  the 
plaything  of  materials;  it  shall  be  no  more  a  mere  tabula 
rasa,  to  be  filled  by  the  rigid  will  of  some  disciplinarian; 
it  shall  not  even  be  mere  wild  and  natural  primitive  im- 
pulses, which  may  develop  their  own  anarchic  characteristics 
unhindered  by  the  experiences  of  the  past.  No  doubt  there 
will  be  those — doubtless  there  are  some,  even  still — who  are 
innocent  of  any  acquaintance  with  this  fundamental  revolu- 
tion in  philosophy,  psychology,  and  education,  those  who 
still  consider  mind  from  the  old  seventeenth  century  stand- 
point. 


THE  APPEARANCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY       305 

But  all  philosophy,  psychology,  and  educational  theory 
that  knows  the  history  of  its  own  development  realizes  that 
mind  is  the  central  factor  in  the  problems  of  to-day.  Let 
us  see  this  more  clearly  in  the  one  field  of  education. 

The  Convergence  of  Educational  Movement  in  Kant's 
Revolution. — In  the  two  centuries  preceding  Kant  there  had 
been,  as  we  know,  three  general  solutions  of  the  educational 
problem.  These  were,  of  course,  in  addition  to  the  actual 
traditional  practices  of  the  ordinary  schools  and  the  folk- 
way  education  that  still  went  on  in  the  common  living. 
These  three  general  solutions  were  as  follows : 

(a)  The   various   realists  had   solved   the   problem   by 
means  of  various  types  of  materials,  each  of  which  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  most  valuable  of  all  the  possible  sorts  of 
materials  known. 

(b)  The  formalists,  or  disciplinarians,  had  set  up  a  sort  of 
hypothetical  mind,  which  was  to  be  disciplined  into  shape 
and  use  by  certain  selected  materials  and  by  certain  hard- 
ening experiences. 

(c)  The  naturalists  had  solved  the  problem  by  setting 
forth  how  individual  personality  could  be  developed,  if  the 
child  were  freed  from  the  artificialities  of  civilization  and 
given  a  real  chance  to  grow  up  in  freedom. 

Now  each  of  these  three  solutions  presents  something  of 
genuine  value,  and  the  third  presents  something  that  is 
essentially  new  in  this  age,  though  not  utterly  new  in  the 
world's  experience.  But  each  of  these  three  solutions  is 
afflicted  with  a  fatal  ignorance,  and  all  of  them  almost  in  the 
same  degree — they  are  all  ignorant  of  the  activities  of  the 
mind  which  is  the  real  subject  of  these  solutions.  None  of 
them  knows  much,  if  anything,  of  the  mental  processes  that 
are  involved  in  mental  development,  or  in  the  growth  and 
enrichment  of  experience.  There  is,  of  course,  a  movement 
toward  this  central  problem,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 


306  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

whereas,  Locke,  for  example,  still  sees  the  child  as  an  object 
to  be  educated,  Rousseau  makes  the  child  in  some  measure, 
the  subject  of  his  own  education,  not  completely  acted  upon, 
but  acting.  Yet  even  Rousseau  scarcely  gets  beyond  this 
bulk  statement  of  the  case. 

But  Kant,  in  his  turn,  raises  the  whole  problem  out  of 
the  realm  of  mere  materials  and  external  disciplines  and 
undisturbed  developments  of  natural  capacities.  He  does 
not,  indeed,  set  forth  a  solution  of  the  educational  problem 
in  terms  that  are  clear  and  final.  But  his  "Copernican 
revolution"  can  be  applied  to  the  solution  of  this  problem; 
it  will  be  applied  by  later  educational  theorists ;  and  when 
so  applied,  the  "solution"  will  be  somewhat  as  follows: 

"The  mind  is  central  in  any  process  of  learning;  objects, 
things,  the  world  of  experience  itself,  comes  into  being  in 
the  process  of  becoming  known.  Learning  does  not  consist 
of  conforming  the  mind  to  an  object  that  is  already  in 
existence;  it  consists  of  creating  and  constructing  an  object, 
objects,  things,  a  world.  Hence  the  real  educational  prob- 
lem, when  it  is  raised  to  this  level  of  conscious  understand- 
ing, becomes :  How  does  experience  actually  proceed  in  the 
construction  of  its  own  world  ? ' ' 

If  it  may  be  objected  that  Kant  never  set  forth  the  prob- 
lem of  education  in  this  way,  the  answer  is  that  this  is  the 
implication  of  his  own  "Copernican  revolution,"  and  that 
sooner  or  later  such  a  statement  of  the  problem  will  be 
made ;  and,  further,  that  without  such  a  statement  the  sig- 
nificance of  modern  movements  in  educational  thinking  must 
remain  forever  hidden. 

This  statement  of  the  problem,  when  it  has  been  fully  ap- 
prehended by  the  teacher,  makes  all  further  consideration  of 
the  problem  proceed  from  the  inside.  "What  is  actually 
going  on  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  and  what  actual  changes 
are  taking  place  in  his  experience  ? "  Of  course  the  answers 


THE  APPEARANCE  OF  PSYCHOLOGY   307 

to  these  and  all  similar  problems  are  to  be  found  not  in 
idealistic  speculations,  but  in  the  long  and  patient  inquiries 
into  the  fields  of  psychology,  inquiries  which  have  marked 
the  succeeding  century.  The  tragedy  of  educational  history 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  this :  In  the  universal  recon- 
struction that  the  revolutions  forced  upon  the  world  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century  the  educational  problem  became 
recognized  as  one  of  the  most  fundamental  social  problems; 
and  in  the  intellectual  reconstruction  that  was  actually  be- 
gun by  Kant  the  educational  problem  became  recognized  as, 
in  large  measure,  a  problem  in  psychological  analysis.  Yet 
in  the  face  of  these  two  tremendous  facts  few  social,  politi- 
cal, or  even  psychological  leaders  have  been  interested  in 
the  deeper  problems  of  education,  and  most  teachers  have 
been  utterly  innocent  of  any  understanding  of  the  develop- 
ments in  psychology  or  the  tremendous  importance  of 
psychology  in  the  understanding  of  the  problem. 

The  world  has  been  passing  through  a  series  of  profound 
revolutions  since  the  days  when  Rousseau  wrote  his 
"Emile."  These  revolutions  have  affected  our  whole  po- 
litical structure,  and  our  whole  industrial  organization  is  in 
the  process  of  reconstruction.  Religious  life  has  not  felt 
the  effects  of  this  revolutionary  influence  in  any  marked 
degree,  save  in  the  direction  of  certain  disintegrating  ten- 
dencies; for  the  religious  revolution  failed  to  realize  its 
early  aims,  and  the  religious  world  settled  back  into  a  sort  of 
futile  contentment.  The  actual  organization  of  democratic 
nations  has  come  about ;  but  the  logic  of  democracy  has  not 
yet  found  its  place  in  the  control  of  education.  The  revo- 
lution has  not  yet  penetrated  to  our  educational  procedure. 
The  implications  of  the  social  and  intellectual  revolutions  of 
the  late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries  have  been 
wearing  upon  our  educational  traditions  for  a  generation; 
but  those  traditions  die  hard.  We  shall  see  hereafter  how 


308  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  traditions  of  the  prepsychological  ages  find  much  sub- 
stantial support  in  certain  belated  groups,  or  parties,  whose 
members  have  received  the  benefits  of  many  wonderful  de- 
velopments in  certain  fields  of  modern  knowledge,  but  who 
are,  none  the  less,  pitifully  ignorant  of  the  no  less  wonderful 
developments  in  these  more  central  aspects  of  human  ex- 
perience. We  may  even  see  how  scientists  may  come  to  be 
peculiarly  obstinate  obstacles  to  the  developments  of  psy- 
chology, and,  therefore,  to  a  more  effectual  education. 
Especially  shall  we  see  that  in  practically  all  educational 
practice  the  child  is  still  treated  as  being  a  passive  recipient 
of  the  world  of  nature  and  culture.  Kant 's  wonderful  con- 
ception that  the  mind  shall  be  central  in  the  active  task  of 
world  building,  that  creative  activity  should  be  the  true 
mark  of  experience-development,  is  lost  to  view.  It  is  the 
Socratic  doctrine  returned  to  earth.  But  was  not  Socrates 
put  to  death ;  and  did  not  his  doctrines  die  with  him  ?  We 
shall  see ! 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   INTERPRETATION   OP   EDUCATION 
PESTALOZZI 

SINCE  Kant  there  have  been  two  fundamental  tendencies 
in  the  field  of  educational  discussion,  aside  from  the  com- 
mon run  of  traditional  practice  which  has  gone  on  and  still 
goes  on,  but  is  little  affected  by  theoretical  discussions.  On 
the  one  hand,  of  course,  such  discussion  has  been  constantly 
determined  and  controlled  by  the  growing  insight  which 
the  study  of  psychology  has  given ;  that  is  to  say,  one  of  the 
two  tendencies  has  had  as  its  chief  guide  the  growing  sci- 
ence of  psychology,  and  it  has  attempted  to  become  con- 
sciously psychological.  This  tendency  has  gradually  be- 
come more  and  more  aware  of  its  problem  or  problems,  and 
has  gradually  worked  for  a  more  complete  elaboration  of  its 
analysis  and  its  tools,  until  now  it  seems  to  be  entering  upon 
a  stage  wherein  it  will  be  almost  as  sure  of  its  functions  as 
any  of  the  applied  sciences, — though,  of  course,  it  is  by  no 
means  as  certain  of  its  methods,  or  even  of  its  data,  as  are 
these  other  less  personal  but  more  objective  lines  of  con- 
structive effort.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  there  is  still 
a  large  measure  of  educational  discussion  that  goes  on  prac- 
tically oblivious  to  the  fact  that  psychology  exists.  It 
works  over  old  materials  and  concepts,  or  new  ones,  in  good 
seventeenth  century  fashion;  it  sticks  to  the  old  traditions 
and  methods,  as  if  Kant 's  ' '  Copernican  revolution  in  think- 
ing" had  never  been  suggested.  Such  unintelligent  discus- 
sion muddles  things  immeasurably.  It  is  ignorant  of  its 
own  ignorance,  being  intelligent  only  in  some  department 

309 


310  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  knowledge,  science,  language,  or  application  of  knowl- 
edge, and  caring  nothing  for  the  theory  of  its  own  practices 
or  the  intelligent  criticism  of  those  practices  which  psychol- 
ogy could  offer.  Among  representatives  of  this  tendency 
psychology  is  sometimes  accepted  as  profitable  material  of 
education — stuff  to  be  learned.  But  it  has  no  bearing  on 
the  processes  of  learning !  Theory,  the  one  means  by  which 
thinking  has  been  liberated  from  the  control  of  old  fables  in 
the  fields  of  physics  and  chemistry  and  the  sciences  gener- 
ally, is  looked  upon  with  suspicion  as  a  means  of  liberating 
men's  practices  in  those  fields  where  liberation  is  most  neces- 
sary,— that  is,  in  the  field  of  education.  And  this  tendency 
is  frequently  found  among  leading  thinkers, — scientists  who 
in  their  own  special  lines  have  become  wonderfully  liber- 
ated. One  of  the  greatest  obstacles  to  educational  progress 
to-day  is  found  in  the  failure  of  many  leading  educators  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  psychology  bears  something  of  the 
same  relationship  to  education  that  physics  bears  to  engi- 
neering. 

We  must  first  follow  out  briefly  the  preliminary  course 
of  this  new  psychological  movement  in  education,  in  order 
that  we  may  catch  some  glimpse  of  the  problems  that  are 
still  to  be  solved.  Three  great  names  appear  in  close  rela- 
tionship— Pestalozzi,  Herbart,  and  Froebel. 

Pestalozzi.— Johann  Heinrich  Pestalozzi  (1746-1827) 
was  the  first  notable  representative  of  this  new  tendency 
to  consider  educational  problems  from  within  the  pupil's 
experience.  He  was  more  than  a  teacher  in  the  schools.  He 
was  a  public  educational  reformer,  a  social  leader  in  the 
revolutionary  reconstructions  of  the  eighteenth  and  nine- 
teenth centuries,  and  a  Swiss  patriot — all  in  one,  if  this 
seems  not  too  incredible.  He  first  thought  of  becoming  a 
religious  leader,  but  he  failed  in  his  efforts  to  conduct  the 
conventional  religious  services.  He  tried  law,  but  he  broke 


THE  EFFORTS  OF  PESTALOZZI     311 

down  in  health.  Having  some  acquaintance  with  Rousseau, 
he  decided  to  return  to  nature.  At  the  age  of  twenty-one 
he  burned  all  his  books  and  turned  farmer!  He  married 
at  twenty-three.  His  little  son,  Jacobli,  became  his  text- 
book, his  laboratory,  and  his  experimental  school.  Taking 
Rousseau 's  root  ideas  as  his  starting  point,  he  worked  away 
in  the  obscurity  of  his  farm  at  the  task  of  thinking  through 
some  of  the  problems  that  Rousseau  had  merely  sighted. 
Then  the  children  of  the  poor  in  his  district  attracted  him, 
and  he  sought  means  of  helping  them  to  some  contact  with 
knowledge.  Later,  becoming  poorer  than  the  poor  whom  he 
was  trying  to  help,  he  wrote  the  great  book  which  is  his 
finest  contribution — "Leonard  and  Gertrude,"  a  story  of 
rural  life  in  which  he  sets  forth  his  views  on  social  and  edu- 
cational reforms.  Still  later  he  became  the  keeper  of  a 
poorhouse  for  a  time,  hoping  to  find  a  chance  to  carry  out 
his  experiments  with  the  children  of  the  poor.  But  this 
lasted  a  very  short  while.  Then  he  became  a  teacher  in  a 
school  at  Burgdorf, — on  suspicion.  Here  for  five  years  he 
worked  with  little  children  from  five  to  eight  years  old,  and 
achieved  success  and  fame.  Here  he  wrote  and  published 
"How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children,"  which  sets  forth 
most  fully  the  fundamental  conceptions  upon  which  his 
work  was  based.  After  1805  he  went  to  Yverdun,  where  for 
a  number  of  years  he  continued  his  brilliant  work.  Then 
came  many  years  of  private  and  public  misunderstandings, 
and  at  last  the  breakdown  of  a  brilliant  career. 

Pestalozzi's  Educational  Aims. — Pestalozzi  was  not,  as 
we  have  said,  merely  a  teacher  in  the  schools.  He  was  edu- 
cator, reformer,  and  patriot,  and  he  sought  to  deal  with 
education  as  a  great  social  function.  He  would  extend  the 
provisions  for  education  to  all  the  people.  The  lower  classes, 
he  insists,  have  "precisely  the  same  right  to  enjoy  the  light 
of  the  sun"  as  have  the  upper  classes.  Not  only  that  alone. 


312  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  only  way  society  can  be  saved  from  its  poverty,  its  mis- 
ery, and  its  moral  degradation  is  by  extending  education 
to  every  individual  child.  But  this  great  social  ideal  would 
be  the  most  formal  and  barren  of  useless  dreams  unless  the 
educational  institutions  and  methods  were  made  over  in 
conformity  with  the  finer  ideals  of  the  times.  Hence  Pes- 
talozzi  undertakes  the  appalling  task  of  psychologizing  edu- 
cation. He  has  the  "natural"  spirit  of  Rousseau ;  and  with 
it  he  has  something  of  the  psychological  insight  of  the  best 
leaders  of  that  line  of  development,  especially  Kant  and 
Fichte.  And  he  starts  upon  the  long  task,  not  even  to-day 
fully  begun,  with  the  joy  of  certain  achievement.  His  edu- 
cational creed  has  been  summarized  by  his  biographer,  Morf , 
in  the  following  formal  statements : 

Observation  is  the  foundation  of  instruction. 

Language  must  be  connected  with  observation. 

The  time  for  learning  is  not  the  time  for  judgment  and  criti- 
cism. 

In  each  branch,  instruction  must  begin  with  the  simplest  ele- 
ments, and  proceed  gradually  by  following  the  child's  develop- 
ment; that  is,  by  a  series  of  steps  that  are  psychologically  con- 
nected. 

A  pause  must  be  made  at  each  stage  of  the  instruction  suf- 
ficiently long  for  the  child  to  get  the  new  matter  thoroughly  into 
his  grasp  and  under  his  control. 

Teaching  must  follow  the  path  of  development,  and  not  that 
of  dogmatic  exposition. 

The  individuality  of  the  pupil  must  be  sacred  for  the  teacher. 

The  chief  aim  of  elementary  instruction  is  not  to  furnish  the 
child  with  knowledge  and  talents,  but  to  develop  and  increase  the 
powers  of  his  mind. 

To  knowledge  must  be  joined  power;  to  what  is  known,  the 
ability  to  turn  it  to  account. 

The  relation  between  master  and  pupil,  especially  so  far  as 
discipline  is  concerned,  must  be  established  and  regulated  by  love. 


313 

Instruction  must  be  subordinated  to  the  higher  end  of  educa- 
tion.1 

Pestalozzi  works  for  the  "development  of  human  nature 
and  the  harmonious  cultivation  of  its  powers  and  talents." 
He  finds  that  use — exercise — is  the  only  means  of  develop- 
ment these  powers  possess.  Work — activity  of  a  construct- 
ive sort — is  the  surest  of  all  means  of  growth,  for  "man  is 
much  more  truly  developed  through  that  which  he  does  than 
through  that  which  he  learns."  But  especially  human  na- 
ture in  the  child  must  come  into  actual  contact  with  the 
realities  of  the  world  of  experience,  must  get  its  actual  im- 
pressions from  real  experiences,  must  have  its  intuitions  cul- 
tivated by  feeling  the  impress  of  the  physical  world-order 
on  its  physical  nature,  the  impress  of  the  moral  world-order 
on  its  moral  nature,  etc.  This  actual  intuition  of  the  real- 
ities of  the  world  on  the  part  of  the  child  must  be  fixed  in 
experience  by  further  observation  and  by  exercise.  Words 
stand  in  the  way  of  education,  dulling  the  powers  of  the 
mind  and  destroying  the  sensibility  of  the  mind  to  the  reali- 
ties of  the  world.  Sense-experiences  must  always  form  the 
basis  of  all  lasting  education.  Yet  at  last  these  "expe- 
riences must  be  clearly  expressed  in  words,  or  otherwise 
there  arises  the  same  danger  that  characterizes  the  dominant 
word  teaching,"  i.e.,  lack  of  understanding  of  words,  and 
hence  the  erroneous  use  of  words. 

In  a  word,  Pestalozzi,  interested  in  nature,  uses  the  ma- 
terials of  the  sense-world  in  his  teaching.  But  whereas  the 
older  sense-realists  had  attempted  to  store  the  minds  of  their 
pupils  with  the  materials  of  nature,  Pestalozzi,  following  the 
lead  of  Rousseau  in  the  recognition  of  the  self -activity  of 
the  child  and  the  lead  of  Kant  in  (his  "Copernican  revo- 
lution") in  his  recognition  of  the  creative  activity  of  the 
mind  in  all  learning  processes,  attempts  to  build  up  nature 

i Quoted  by  Graves:  "Great  Educators  of  Three  Centuries,"  p.  136. 


314  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  the  experience  of  each  of  his  pupils  by  the  working  of 
their  own  creative  minds.  He  works  from  the  inside,  not 
from  the  outside  of  the  minds  of  his  pupils.  Nature  is  not 
a  finished  product  to  begin  with ;  it  is  the  final  product  in 
the  experience  of  his  pupils.  The  final  form  of  knowledge 
is  acquired  through  the  development  of  ideas.  Ideas  grad- 
ually emerge  out  of  a  "swimming  sea  of  confused  sense- 
impressions";  they  become  definite  through  critical  contrast 
with  objects  and  other  ideas. 

All  this  is  based  on  the  idea  of  self-activity  and  self -devel- 
opment. The  teacher's  real  business  is  to  give  a  "helping 
hand  to  the  instructive  efforts  after  self -development. " 
The  child  must  learn  how  to  observe  carefully,  since  sense- 
perception  is  the  basis  of  all  mental  development,  especially 
of  judgment  and  thought.  ' '  We  get  knowledge  by  our  own 
investigations,  not  by  endless  talk  about  the  results  of  art 
and  science."  After  sense-perception,  analysis  of  experi- 
ence must  be  developed.  ' '  We  put  our  children  on  the  road 
which  the  discoverer  of  the  subject  himself  took." 

All  in  all,  Pestalozzi  rises  rather  fully  to  certain  con- 
structive details  of  the  great  psychological  task.  It  is  true 
that  some  of  his  efforts  are  more  or  less  unreal.  For  ex- 
ample, his  plan  to  psychologize  education  was  rather  fan- 
tastic, at  least,  in  so  far  as  it  involved  the  reducing  of  all  the 
materials  of  education  to  psychological  equivalents  in  the 
experiences  of  children.  Such  a  proposal  is  very  fascinat- 
ing. But  as  a  predigesting  of  educational  materials  it  is 
open  to  the  objection  that  meets  all  proposals  to  feed  the 
world  on  predigested  materials.  It  is  not  the  predigestion 
of  materials  that  is  wanted ;  it  is  the  proper  understanding 
of,  and  adaptation  to,  the  whole  process  of  nutrition. 

The  Return  to  Materialism. — But  this  proposal,  while  it 
holds  a  certain  valuable  suggestion,  is  open  to  one  other 
almost  fatal  objection:  it  seems  to  turn  back  upon  materials 


THE  EFFORTS  OF  PESTALOZZI     315 

once  more.  It  may  be  but  the  resurgence  of  that  older  ma- 
terialism which  was  the  favored  solution  for  the  educational 
problem  in  the  seventeenth  century.  To  be  sure,  this 
psychologizing  of  the  materials  seems  to  take  mind  into 
account ;  and  it  does,  too,  in  a  way,  but  not  in  an  adequate 
way.  Or,  rather,  it  takes  mind  into  account  in  a  round- 
about way.  For,  on  the  whole,  this  conception  of  Pesta- 
lozzi  seems  to  use  the  mind  merely  as  a  sort  of  agency  to 
selection  of  the  proper  materials  for  education.  At  any 
rate,  we  see  his  work  gradually  deteriorate,  until  once  again 
materials  are  dominant.  Pestalozzi,  himself,  recognized  the 
danger  of  this  return  to  the  old  ways.  He  says :  "I  cannot 
prevent  the  forms  of  my  method  from  having  the  same  fate 
as  all  other  forms,  which  inevitably  perish  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  are  neither  desirous  nor  capable  of  grasping  their 
spirit."  But  the  danger  was  not  that  others  would  not 
appreciate  the  method  at  its  full  value,  though  of  course 
that  happened  in  large  measure.  Pestalozzi,  himself,  did 
not  escape  from  this  formal  tendency  toward  the  emphasis 
upon  old  materials.  In  particular  he  emphasized  the  teach- 
ing of  words,  plain  lists  of  words,  though  his  method  had 
been  largely  a  revolt  against  the  mere  teaching  of  words; 
and  he  came,  through  a  fallacious  over-emphasis  upon  the 
doctrine  of  proceeding  "from  the  simple  to  the  complex," 
to  a  very  curious  belief  that  the  whole  process  of  education 
could  be  mechanized,  that  is,  reduced  to  a  system  that  should 
be  as  accurate  as  a  piece  of  mechanism.  The  former  of 
these  tendencies  shows  Pestalozzianism  as  inculcating  words 
that  run  far  beyond  the  experience  of  the  learner,  which 
Pestalozzi  justifies  by  saying  that  the  ' '  gain  of  what  at  this 
age  is  so  complete  a  knowledge  of  lists  of  names,  so  various 
and  comprehensive,  is  immeasurable  in  facilitating  the  sub- 
sequent instruction  of  children."  This  is  materialistic  for- 
malism of  the  finest  sort.  The  latter  of  these  tendencies 


316  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

shows  Pestalozzi  attempting  to  organize  "every  branch  of 
popular  knowledge  or  talent"  in  the  form  of  a  "graduated 
series  of  exercises,  the  starting  point  of  which  was  within 
everybody's  comprehension,  and  the  unbroken  action  of 
which,  always  exercising  the  child's  powers  without  ex- 
hausting them,  resulted  in  a  continuous,  easy,  and  attract- 
ive progress  in  which  knowledge  and  the  application  of 
knowledge  were  always  intimately  connected." 

It  would  not  be  fair,  however,  to  class  Pestalozzi  with  the 
old  sense-realists.  He  was  primarily  interested  in  those 
materials  of  education  which  come  into  experience  through 
the  senses  by  observation.  His  interest  in  words  goes  only 
so  far  as  to  suggest  that  the  possession  of  long  lists  of  words 
in  the  mind  will  be  very  helpful  in  dealing  with  the  ma- 
terials which  observation  brings  to  the  mind  for  use.  He 
feels  with  the  sense-realists  that  the  best  education  comes 
from  the  materials  which  they  emphasized.  But  he  has 
gone  far  enough  beyond  them  to  want  these  sense-materials 
to  come  into  the  mind  in  a  natural  manner,  that  is,  psycho- 
logically. Hence  he  would  chart  out  the  mind  as  much  as 
that  is  possible ;  then  he  would  chart  out  these  desirable  ma- 
terials, proceeding  in  them  from  the  simple  to  the  more 
complicated ;  and  finally  he  would  relate  all  these  materials 
in  definite  fashion  to  the  mental  processes  in  such  detailed 
and  simple  fashion  that  "schools  would  gradually  almost 
cease  to  be  necessary. ' ' 

The  work  of  Pestalozzi  was  a  strong,  constructive,  heroic 
effort  of  a  brave  and  patient  life.  He  accomplished  much 
by  his  inspiring  work  as  teacher  and  by  his  insight  into  the 
processes  of  experience.  But  his  own  training  was  not  com- 
plete enough  to  enable  him  to  win  to  the  far  goal.  Tradi- 
tion was  too  firmly  rooted  in  him  to  be  easily  overcome,  and 
he  broke  down  under  the  strain  of  years  of  privation  and 
misunderstanding.  He  rose  to  high  fame,  and  worthily  so ; 


THE  WORK  OF  HERBART  317 

but  he  fell  to  partial  obscurity  and  defeat  before  he  died. 
On  the  side  of  social  reformation  his  work  had  broad  and 
lasting  influence ;  and  he  did  much  to  popularize  the  move- 
ment for  industrial  education  and  the  social  care  of  juvenile 
delinquents.  In  an  incidental  way  his  theories  affected  the 
general  curriculum,  effecting  changes  in  the  teaching  of  the 
languages  and  the  study  of  nature.  But  he  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  psychologizing  education.  Indeed,  it  may  almost  be 
asserted  that  his  doctrines  played  into  the  materialistic  tra- 
dition by  showing  how  close  the  materials  of  the  mind  can  be 
made  to  relate  themselves  to  mental  processes.  At  any  rate, 
Pestalozzianism  is  one  of  the  many  isms  from  which  educa- 
tional theory  and  practice  must  escape.  More  work  along 
all  lines,  more  analysis  of  the  psychological  and  logical  con- 
ditions under  which  learning  takes  place,  will  be  necessary 
before  the  whole  problem  appears  and  the  broader  lines  of 
solution  begin  to  develop.  The  many-sided  argument  runs 
on  from  age  to  age;  but  intelligence  is  burrowing  deeper 
into  the  task.  Nothing  less  than  the  whole  intellectual- 
moral  life  of  humanity  is  the  problem,  and  the  process  of 
development  of  that  life  is  the  goal.  Pestalozzi  contributes 
his  share  to  the  conversation  and  passes  on.  We  turn  to  the 
next  worker  in  the  line  of  psychological  analysis. 

THE  WORK  OF   HERBART   AS  EDUCATIONAL   PSYCHOLOGIST 

The  second  constructive  educational  thinker  who  followed 
the  new  psychological  trend  was  Johann  Friedrich  Herbart 
(1776-1841 ) .  Herbart  came  under  the  influence  of  the  new 
movement  in  his  university  career  at  Jena.  It  was  not 
Kant,  however,  who  first  influenced  him,  but  Fichte.  The 
latter  was  himself  a  follower  first  in  the  new  idealistic  move- 
ment, but  later  became  a  constructive  thinker  in  his  own 
way.  Herbart  became  a  professional  philosopher,  as  well  as 
an  educational  psychologist,  and  this  experience  shows  its 


318  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

influence  upon  all  his  work.  His  aims  are  more  philosophi- 
cal (as  opposed  to  being  merely  psychological)  than  are 
those  of  Pestalozzi.  Indeed,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  criticize 
the  rather  raw  sense-methods  of  Pestalozzi.  He  considered 
the  ordinary  observation  which  Pestalozzi  esteemed  so  highly 
as  being  of  uncertain  value,  because  the  undisciplined  senses 
(as  he  argued)  were  scarcely  capable  of  giving  us  reliable 
truth.  He  would  correct  these  possibilities  of  error  by 
means  of  an  extreme  discipline  of  the  senses,  which  was  to 
be  secured,  for  example,  by  the  serious  study  of  mathemati- 
cal forms. 

Herbart's  Educational  Aims. — Herbart  believed  that 
education  was  worthy  of  becoming  a  science  in  its  own 
right.  He  felt  keenly  the  rather  superficial  views  of  most 
educators  of  the  past.  He  saw  that  most  of  the  educational 
thinking  of  the  past  had  been  largely  made  up  of  uncon- 
sidered  generalities  on  the  basis  of  naive  assumptions.  In 
other  words,  he  saw  that  educational  thinking  had  been 
largely  devoted  to  making  explicit  the  unintelligent  prac- 
tices of  the  folkways  of  the  past.  Herbart  would  make 
educational  procedure  fully  and  wholly  intelligent.  Its 
aim  must  be  an  intelligent  one — the  actual  development 
of  a  moral  personality.  Its  methods  must  go  far  beyond 
the  common  practice,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  doubtful 
theories  of  recent  writers,  on  the  other.  Common  prac- 
tice was  fallacious,  of  course,  because  it  assumed  that  mor- 
ality was  a  more  or  less  unpredictable  element,  not  to  be 
attained  by  any  particular  exertion  on  the  part  of  the 
teacher.  Locke  was  a  bad  guide  in  that  his  whole  scheme 
of  education  was  merely  the  cultivation  of  the  conventional 
man  of  the  world,  who,  of  course,  would  not  rise  above  the 
levels  of  convention.  Rousseau  was  a  bad  guide  because  his 
whole  scheme  of  education  looked  to  the  development  of  a 
natural  man  who,  of  course,  should  "repeat  from  the  be- 


THE  WORK  OF  HERBART  319 

ginning  the  succession  of  evils  already  overcome"  by  the 
race  in  its  progress  toward  civilization.  Herbart  would 
substitute  for  all  such  inadequate  conceptions  and  practices 
the  method  of  instruction.  He  would  lay  out  before  the 
teacher  the  whole  structure  of  the  mental  life,  with  all  its 
possibilities,  and  he  would  have  a  teacher  who  could  then 
succeed  in  introducing  into  the  full  workings  of  that  human 
mental  life  all  the  elements  that  should  be  needed  in  the 
final  summation  of  a  complete  moral  personality.  He  would 
have  all  these  results  come  as  the  natural  working  of  the 
principles  of  instruction  carried  on  according  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  individual. 

Herbart 's  Conception  of  Method. — The  moral  ideal  de- 
mands a  certain  concentration  of  effort  toward  a  rather  dis- 
tinct goal.  In  order  to  make  sure  that  this  effort  should 
not  result  in  a  narrowly  dogmatic  type  of  character,  Herbart 
insists  that  education  must  maintain  and  develop  "many- 
sidedness  of  interest."  Herbart  does  not  seem  to  have 
based  this  demand  upon  the  modern  conception  of  many- 
sidedness  of  native  capacity, — such  a  conception  had  not  yet 
appeared  as  a  working  guide, — although  he  does  insist  that 
the  early  education  of  the  child  can  best  be  secured  through 
the  use  of  such  materials  as  the  Odyssey.  Rather,  he  bases 
the  possibility  of  the  development  of  a  many-sided  interest 
on  the  working  of  reflection.  Reflective  thought  must  be  so 
developed  as  to  make  sure  that  life  shall  have  many  aspects, 
many  references,  and  many  interests. 

How  shall  this  reflective  thought  be  thus  secured?  Her- 
bart has  worked  out  a  definite,  formal  method  by  which  to 
make  sure  of  this  development.  Originally  this  method  was 
based  on  four  distinctive  steps  in  the  process  of  thinking, 
as  follows :  clearing  up  of  ideas  already  in  the  mind,  pres- 
entation of  new  ideas,  association  of  the  new  ideas  with  the 
old  mental  contents,  and  application  of  these  new  contents 


320  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

in  practice.  We  shall  see  later  the  full  results  of  this  pro- 
cedure. We  must  now  follow  Herbart's  psychology  a  little 
further. 

Herbart  is  distinctly  what  may  be  called  an  intellectualist. 
That  is  to  say,  for  him  ideas  are  the  primary  characteristic 
of  the  mind — the  mind  being  in  one  sense  just  a  series  of 
masses  of  ideas,  each  of  which,  with  more  or  less  persistence 
and  regularity,  occupies  the  center  of  consciousness,  rising 
above  the  threshold  of  consciousness  for  a  time  and  then 
falling  below  that  threshold.  Ideas  are  the  prime  reality, 
the  real  force  of  the  mind  and  of  the  world.  Will,  itself,  is 
but  a  sort  of  special  form  of  intellectual  activity,  as  are  also 
interest,  feeling,  and  desire.  In  such  a  system  it  will  be 
readily  seen  that  the  chief  problem  in  moral  development  is 
that  of  bringing  the  proper  ideas  into  the  mind,  getting 
them  into  the  circle  of  thought,  since  in  this  way  these  ideas 
would  thus  get  in  their  work  upon  the  will.  But  ideas  are 
forces,  and  those  that  are  in  the  mind  are  in  constant  battle 
for  the  possession  of  consciousness,  fighting  with  each  other 
for  the  central  position  of  power  and  of  course  joining 
hands,  as  we  might  say,  in  their  common  fight  to  prevent  the 
intrusion  of  any  other  ideas  not  distinctly  related  in  charac- 
ter to  those  already  within  the  mind.  That  is  to  say,  Her- 
bart conceives  of  these  ideas  as  being  actively  engaged  in 
the  fight  for  a  place  in  the  mind,  combining  with  each  other 
for  mutual  help  and  attacking  each  other,  their  modes  of 
combination  being  regular  and  ascertainable.  He  even  goes 
so  far  as  to  work  out  those  modes  of  relationships  in  exact 
mathematical  terms. 

Apperception. — This  discussion  will  help  to  make  clear 
the  celebrated  doctrine  of  apperception,  which  two  decades 
ago  seemed  to  offer  the  long-sought  clue  to  the  educational 
millennium.  Herbart  conceives  of  the  mind  as  being  thus 
constituted  of  masses  of  ideas,  each  with  its  own  character- 


THE  WORK  OF  HERBART  321 

istic  nature.  These  various  masses  of  ideas  welcome  other 
ideas  which  seem  to  possess  the  same  general  character,  and 
which  will  therefore  strengthen  the  fight  of  these  former 
ideas  for  their  dominant  position  in  the  mind.  These  masses 
of  old  ideas  not  only  welcome  all  new  ideas  of  a  similar  char- 
acter, but  they  take  in  the  new  ideas ;  they  assimilate  them 
and  make  them  part  of  the  existent  mass.  So  that  every 
new  idea  taken  into  the  mind  swells  its  particular  existent 
mass  of  ideas  and  makes  easier  the  entrance  of  other  ideas 
of  the  same  general  type ;  and,  by  the  same  token,  this  makes 
more  difficult  the  entrance  of  ideas  of  another  type.  These 
previously  existent  masses  of  ideas  are  the  famous  ' '  apper- 
ception masses."  They  welcome,  assimilate,  and  organize 
into  themselves  the  new  ideas.  They  thus  give  vital  sig- 
nificance to  all  new  materials  taken  into  the  mind,  in  that 
way  adding  to  perception. 

There  is  a  certain  obvious  value  in  this  doctrine  of  apper- 
ception :  it  shows  the  tremendous  importance  of  building  up 
proper  apperception  masses  in  the  experience  of  the  child. 
If  the  present  contents  of  the  mind  have  such  determining 
influence  upon  later  contents,  educational  destiny  may  al- 
most be  said  to  depend  upon  the  early  beginnings  of  the 
process.  But  there  is  another  item  of  equal  importance. 
Ideas  not  only  welcome  some  ideas ;  they  also  fight  the  en- 
trance of  other,  ideas.  And  this  fight  against  certain  new 
ideas  may  not  be  due  to  any  moral  difference  in  the  nature 
of  the  new  ideas,  though  doubtless  this  is  frequently  the 
case.  The  reason  for  the  attitude  of  conflict  upon  the  part 
of  the  old  ideas  toward  the  new  may  be  due  to  a  wide  gap 
in  the  logical  organization  of  the  new,  so  that  even  though 
the  new  ideas  are  distinctly  of  the  same  general  character 
as  the  old,  yet  they  are  not  recognized  by  the  old.  They 
have  no  logical  similarity  of  characteristics,  and  they  are 
fought  on  the  general  ground  that  always  identifies  the  un- 


322  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

like  with  dislike.  This  indicates  the  extreme  importance  of 
making  the  curriculum  correspond  to  the  stages  of  develop- 
ment of  the  child's  experience.  And  this  leads  to  several 
striking  results.  In  the  first  place,  and  in  its  smaller  aspect, 
the  materials  of  the  curriculum  must  be  arranged  in  an 
ascending  scale  of  growing  complexity,  corresponding  to  the 
probable  complexities  in  the  experiences  of  growing  child- 
hood. In  the  second  place,  and  from  the  larger  point  of 
view,  it  is  likely  that  this  proper  organization  of  the  studies 
will  show  that  the  best  presentation  is  that  which  follows, — 
at  least  in  great  epochs, — the  history  of  the  development 
of  those  studies  in  the  experience  of  the  race.  Thus  ap- 
pears the  celebrated  theory  of  culture  epochs,  which  finds  in 
the  history  of  the  race  the  clue  to  the  proper  organization 
of  the  subject-matter  of  the  modern  school  curriculum. 
This  theory  is,  of  course,  also  closely  related  to  the  theory 
of  recapitulation,  according  to  which  the  child  develops  a 
series  of  native  activities  or  capacities  or  instincts  in  the 
same  general  order  in  which  those  capacities  were  devel- 
oped in  the  history  of  the  race.  But  the  whole  topic  is  far 
too  extensive  for  this  present  treatment. 

One  summary  statement  must  conclude  this  topic.  Her- 
bart  himself  sums  up  the  whole  matter  of  apperception  in 
its  relation  to  the  main  aim  of  education,  that  is,  to  morality, 
in  the  sentence,  "Instruction  will  form  the  circle  of  thought, 
and  the  circle  of  thought  the  character."  And  of  such  a 
system  of  psychology  and  education  it  were  not  altogether 
difficult  to  understand  why  a  certain  leading  Herbartian 
should  say,  ' '  Teachers  ought  to  accept  it  as  true  and  to  act 
under  the  assumption  that  it  is  true,  whether  it  is  true  or 
not." 

Some  Results. — Herbart  is  remembered  as  psychologist 
and  metaphysician,  as  well  as  educator.  Indeed,  it  is  likely 
that  his  educational  doctrines  are  but  elements  in  his  gen- 


323 

eral  metaphysic,  and  that  they  will  suffer  the  fate  of  his 
general  philosophy.  There  is  a  certain  moral  idealism  in  his 
teaching  that  cannot  be  escaped.  And  there  is  a  certain 
pious  hope  that  he  has  found  the  clue  to  mental  life,  and 
hence  to  instruction.  But  the  doctrine  of  apperception  has 
passed  out  of  the  psychologies;  the  word  is  scarcely  to  be 
found  in  the  books  of  to-day.  That  does  not  mean  that  what 
Herbart  tried  to  describe  under  that  name  does  not  exist. 
It  simply  means  that  it  is  at  present  much  better  described 
from  another  point  of  view  and  under  another  title.  Her- 
bart's  psychology  was  associative  in  its  basic  features.  In 
an  associative  psychology  ideas  merely  attach  themselves  to 
each  other  like  beads  on  a  string ;  there  is  no  necessary  in- 
teraction among  them.  Herbart  felt  the  unreality  of  this 
conception ;  but  the  evolutionary  conception  of  an  actively 
reconstructive  mental  life  had  not  developed.  If  ideas  were 
to  have  internal  relationships  to  each  other,  some  special 
means  of  action  must  be  set  forth.  Perception,  itself,  being 
but  the  means  by  which  ideas  became  associated  together, 
something  must  be  added  to  perception  to  bring  them  into 
organic  interrelationship.  Hence  we  get  apperception,  or 
something  added  to  perception.  To-day,  however,  percep- 
tion is  itself  described  as  an  active  process  which  involves 
all  the  functions  of  the  mind  in  the  interpretation  of  new  ex- 
periences. Hence  perception  now  performs  all  the  func- 
tions covered  by  Herbart 's  apperception. 

Herbart 's  psychology  is  material  for  criticism  to-day. 
Herbart 's  formal  method  has  suffered  in  a  somewhat  similar 
manner.  To  him,  as  we  have  seen,  formal  method  implied  a 
following  of  the  generalized  stages  of  development  by  which 
the  mind  takes  into  itself  new  materials.  That  is  to  say, 
Herbart  himself  always  remained  a  psychologist  in  his  han- 
dling of  the  problems  of  education.  But  his  most  ardent 
followers,  chief  of  whom  have  been  English  and  American 


324  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

thinkers,  have  tended  to  fall  away  from  the  psychological 
point  of  view  and  to  once  more  become  materialists  in  the 
seventeenth  century  sense.  That  is  to  say,  in  the  hands  of 
his  followers  method  has  largely  ceased  to  be  stages  of  de- 
velopment in  the  learning  process  and  has  become,  instead, 
stages  of  development  in  the  organization  of  materials.  In 
place  of  the  four  formal  steps  by  which  the  mind  appre- 
hended the  materials  of  the  world  and  applied  them  to  the 
larger  uses  of  life,  we  find  in  the  later  Herbartians  five 
formal  steps  in  the  development  of  the  materials  of  the  les- 
son— preparation,  presentation,  association,  generalization, 
and  application.  It  has  been  frequently  set  forth  that  few 
people  seem  to  have  the  power  of  dealing  thoroughly  with 
the  problem  of  method.  The  greater  part  fall  away  from 
that  rather  abstract  problem  to  the  concrete  problem  of 
reorganizing  a  curriculum  in  such  way  as  to  fulfil  the  de- 
mands of  method  as  they  understand  it.  The  organization 
of  the  mind  comes  to  be  assumed  as  explicit  and  settled. 
The  really  constructive  task  is  that  of  organizing  the  ma- 
terials of  knowledge  so  that  these  will  correspond  with  the 
organization  of  the  mind.  The  Herbartians  did  not  escape 
this  fate. 

But  the  futility  of  such  a  procedure  has  been  rather 
clearly  recognized.  As  evidence  of  this  it  may  be  pointed 
out  that  in  the  late  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century,  under 
the  stimulus  of  the  Herbartian  movement  in  America,  the 
National  Herbart  Society  was  organized.  This  organization 
carried  on  investigation  of  the  Herbartian  system  and  prop- 
aganda for  the  purpose  of  spreading  the  doctrine.  But 
under  the  influence  of  constructive  criticism  from  practical 
school-men  and  from  psychological  laboratories  the  system 
soon  lost  its  dominating  influence.  Herbart  fell  back  from 
his  rather  overwhelming  importance  in  American  educa- 
tional procedure,  and  the  purposes  of  the  organization  were 


THE  WORK  OF  HERBART  325 

so  far  altered  by  the  shifting  conditions  in  theory  and  in 
practice  that  the  name  of  the  society  was  changed,  early  in 
the  twentieth  century,  from  the  National  Herbart  Society  to 
the  Society  for  the  Scientific  Study  of  Education.  That  is 
to  say,  consideration  of  the  whole  broad  problem  of  educa- 
tion was  to  take  the  place  of  the  study  and  propagation  of 
the  doctrines  of  a  particular  man.  But  it  is  no  small  testi- 
monial to  the  values  in  the  work  of  Herbart  that  he  could 
thus  transmute  his  discipleship  into  the  broader  discipleship 
of  the  scientific  problem  itself.  And  it  may  be  said,  in 
closing  this  study,  that  Herbart  did  not  contribute  much 
to  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  educational  psychology. 
That  would  have  been  impossible  so  early  in  the  discus- 
sion. He  rather  contributed  to  a  clearer  conception  of  the 
exact  nature  of  the  problem.  That  is  to  say,  he  did  not  leave 
an  answer  to  the  problem ;  he  left  a  more  complete  statement 
of  the  problem  for  future  analysis. 

Herbart  differs  from  Pestalozzi  in  one  fundamental  par- 
ticular. Pestalozzi  was  profoundly  interested  in  the  way  in 
which  we  build  up  a  world  for  our  uses  through  the  activi- 
ties of  the  senses.  Herbart  is  primarily  interested  in  the 
world  that  is  revealed  to  us  through  our  ideas.  He  finds  in 
history  a  great  world  of  social  and  moral  values,  just  as 
Pestalozzi  finds  about  us  a  great  world  of  nature.  Her- 
bart's  question  is  this:  How  shall  the  child  be  enabled  to 
build  for  himself,  for  the  uses  of  his  life,  this  larger  world 
of  morality?  Herbart  sees  that  such  a  world,  if  it  is  to 
arise  at  all,  must  arise  in  and  through  the  thinking  of  the 
individual.  Hence  he  is  primarily  interested  in  the  proc- 
esses of  our  thoughts,  the  activities  of  our  ideas,  and  how 
that  activity  of  the  mind  actually  passes  over  into  the 
substance  of  our  world  of  action.  He  loses  sight,  in  large 
measure,  of  the  problem  set  by  Pestalozzi;  but  he  sets  the 
whole  problem  in  a  larger  scale. 


326 

Herbart's  influence  upon  American  educational  discus- 
sion has  been  very  marked.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  just 
what  value  that  influence  has  had.  He  certainly  succeeded 
in  compelling  educators  to  think  about  what  they  were 
doing.  He  broke  up  old  routines  and  traditions,  and  he 
insisted  that  education  should  be  the  subject  of  intelligent 
discussion.  But  while  he  attempts  to  deal  with  the  process 
in  psychological  terms,  his  psychology  is  so  inadequate,  so 
mechanical,  that  he  does  not  get  far.  Instead,  he  turns 
aside  to  deal  with  materials,  to  organize  materials  in  the 
proper  sequence  for  presentation  to  the  mind.  Professor 
Dewey  says  of  Herbart's  method:  "The  theory  represents 
the  schoolmaster  come  to  his  own.  .  .  .  The  conception  that 
the  mind  consists  of  what  has  been  taught  .  .  .  reflects  the 
pedagogue 's  view  of  life.  The  philosophy  is  eloquent  about 
the  duty  of  the  teacher  in  instructing  the  pupils ;  it  is  almost 
silent  regarding  his  privilege  of  learning. ' '  That  is  to  say, 
once  more  we  are  back  among  the  materials.  The  teacher 
is  to  inculcate;  the  pupil  is  to  passively  "take  on"  the  ma- 
terials ;  and  Kant,  with  his  Copernican  revolution  in  think- 
ing which  sets  forth  the  doctrine  that  the  mind  is  to  be  ac- 
tive in  the  construction  of  its  own  experience-world,  is  for- 
gotten. 

Hence  Herbart,  having  done  his  work  of  emphasizing  the 
problem,  must  pass  on.  And  once  more  we  turn  hopefully 
to  a  new  adventure  into  the  mazes  of  the  problem. 

FROEBEL  AND   THE   KINDERGARTEN   MOVEMENT 

Herbart  had  set  the  problem  of  educational  analysis  on 
the  high  levels  of  intellectual  and  ethical  realization.  This 
is,  of  course,  the  most  important  aspect  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion, and  Herbart  advanced  a  statement  of  it  which  for  a 
time  was  thought  to  be  the  final  solution  of  the  problem. 


FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN      327 

But  we  can  now  see  that  his  work  was  but  one  of  the  many 
necessary  steps  in  the  great  social  discussion, — a  very  valu- 
able discussion,  but  one  which  brought  with  it  certain  er- 
roneous conclusions  and  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  in  no 
sense  really  final.  "We  must  turn  back  upon  the  road  by 
which  he  came  and  pick  up  some  of  the  threads  which  he 
ignored.  "We  turn  to  Froebel,  the  third  of  this  great  group 
who  followed  the  general  lead  of  the  new  psychological 
movement. 

Friedrich  Froebel  (1782-1852). — Froebel's  childhood  was 
not  a  happy  one.  After  a  varied  career  as  boy  and  youth, 
he  finally  found  the  chance  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  edu- 
cation. He  visited  Pestalozzi  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
and  later  as  a  teacher  he  lived  close  to  the  Pestalozzian 
school  atYverdun.  Later  he  entered  the  University  of  Got- 
tingen,  determined  to  find  out  how  to  educate  human  beings 
in  scientific  fashion.  Here  he  did  not  particularly  study 
children,  or  even  adults ;  nor  did  he  devote  his  time  to  phil- 
osophy and  psychology.  Rather,  he  assumed  that  the  life  of 
man  had  been  lived  in  the  world,  the  world  of  objects ;  hence, 
he  assumed  that  a  study  of  the  world  of  objects  would  bring 
him  closer  to  a  clue  to  the  processes  of  development  of  hu- 
man experience  than  would  a  direct  study  of  that  expe- 
rience. Later  he  did  study  the  works  of  Rousseau,  Pesta- 
lozzi, and  Fichte,  thus  bringing  together  the  results  of  his 
own  study  of  the  world  within  which  men  have  grown  up, 
and  the  results  of  the  study  of  these  great  thinkers  on  the 
problem  of  the  experience  that  has  been  developed  within 
this  world.  He  thus  brought  together  the  two  essential  as- 
pects of  the  problem  of  educational  psychology.  At  the  age 
of  thirty-four  Froebel  became  the  guardian  of  his  brother's 
children,  and  he  conceived  the  idea  of  making  these  chil- 
dren the  nucleus  of  a  school  that  should  embody  his  growing 


328  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

conceptions  of  education.  This  resulted  in  the  Universal 
German  Educational  Institute,  to  which  came  many  leading 
educators  of  the  time. 

In  1826  Froebel  published  his  " Education  of  Man."  In 
1840  he  opened  the  first  kindergarten  at  Blankenburg.  The 
idea  spread,  and  in  a  few  years  kindergartens  had  become 
common  in  Germany.  This  institution  was  developed,  it 
will  be  noted,  in  Frbebel's  mature  years.  He  thought  of  it 
as  an  institution  which  should  undertake  to  develop  the 
child  as  an  organism,  knowing  the  nature  of  the  organism 
that  was  to  be  developed  and  making  an  environment  that 
should  stimulate  the  sort  of  organic  development  that 
seemed  desirable.  This  is  the  most  admirable  statement  yet 
developed  of  the  whole  process  of  education.  But  it  was 
far  too  liberal.  It  was  the  fate  of  Froebel's  work  that  it 
should  develop  to  this  height  in  the  days  of  the  great  liberal 
movement  which  culminated  in  the  revolution  of  1848 ;  and 
it  was  also  fated  that  it  should  be  almost  the  first  to  feel 
the  heavy  hand  of  reaction  which  followed  hard  upon  those 
constructive  years.  Raumer,  reactionary  minister  of  educa- 
tion, felt  the  dangers  of  such  an  organic  education.  In 
1851  he  ordered  all  kindergartens  closed  throughout  the 
whole  kingdom  of  Prussia.  Froebel  did  not  long  survive 
this  blow  at  his  cherished  projects.  He  died  in  1852. 

Comparison  of  Froebel  with  His  Predecessors. — Pesta- 
lozzi  worked  out  in  some  degree  in  the  field  of  nature  the 
general  psychological  proposals  of  Kant,  while  Herbart  per- 
formed a  somewhat  similar  service  in  the  field  of  history. 
Each  saw  fairly  clearly  the  meanings  of  Kant's  revolution- 
ary doctrines  as  to  the  aim  of  education,  but  each  failed 
rather  conclusively  in  the  matter  of  stating  these  new  aims 
in  the  form  of  new  and  logically  organized  method;  and,  of 
course,  if  this  psychological  movement  was  to  stand  for  any- 
thing, it  must  be  for  method,  rather  than  for  either  materials 


FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN      329 

or  aims.  Froebel  understood,  at  least  in  some  measure,  the 
failure  of  psychology  to  comprehend  this  problem  of  method. 
In  his  own  work  he  undertook  to  remedy  the  defect.  All 
his  work  is  essentially  in  the  field  of  method.  He  is  not  yet 
master  in  this  field,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  devotes 
too  much  of  his  energy  to  the  working  out  of  mere  devices; 
but  he  goes  far  beyond  any  other  man  of  his  time  in  the 
working  out  of  the  problem.  However,  he  never  succeeded 
in  working  out  the  significance  of  his  method  for  the  years 
beyond  the  kindergarten  age;  but,  for  that  matter,  those 
years  have  not,  even  yet,  been  successfully  analyzed. 

Froebel's  Method. — Froebel  accepts  the  psychological 
point  of  view  almost  completely.  The  fundamental  clue  to  the 
process  of  education  he  finds  in  his  doctrine  of  the  self- 
activity  of  the  child.  Pestalozzi  had  touched  upon  this,  but 
Herbart,  by  his  emphasis  upon  the  primary  nature  of  ideas, 
had  been  compelled  to  largely  ignore  it  and  to  atone  for  its 
loss  by  introducing  the  doctrine  of  apperception.  But  Froe- 
bel holds  conclusively  to  the  rather  advanced,  even  evolu- 
tionary, doctrine  that  children  are,  in  their  own  right,  nat- 
urally and  natively  active.  It  is  not  the  teacher's  business 
to  get  them  to  act.  It  is  the  business  of  the  school  to 
accept  this  principle  of  activity  and  make  the  most  of  it. 
It  is  the  teacher's  work  to  surround  the  active  child  with 
a  rich  world  of  possible  experiences,  so  that  in  all  their 
activity  the  children  will  be  choosing  constructive  acts  and 
building  up  a  world  of  experience  that  shall  be  socially 
and  ethically  desirable, — a  world  that  is  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  the  good  life.  It  is  the  business  of  teach- 
ers of  whatever  sort  to  live  with  their  children,  and  not 
merely  to  teach  them. 

But  living  with  children  means  much  more  than  mere 
personal  presence;  it  is  much  more  than  mere  intellectual 
performance.  It  particularly  involves  the  development  of 


330  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

a  world  of  action  for  the  children  within  which  they  will 
find  the  stimulations  and  the  opportunities  for  a  normal 
sort  of  life.  They  are  self-active,  as  we  have  seen. 
Through  a  sort  of  philosophical  mysticism  Froebel  finds 
God,  expressed  in  universal  law  and  underlying  unity,  in  all 
things.  He  thinks  of  children  as"  possessed  of  an  original, 
unmarred  nature,  which  should  be  given  proper  opportu- 
nity to  develop.  The  teacher  is  to  make  possible  the  devel- 
opment of  this  inner  nature. 

It  is  this  expression  of  the  inner  life  that  marks  out  Froe- 
bel's  doctrine  as  of  peculiar  importance.  He  says,  "Never 
forget  that  the  essential  business  of  the  school  is  not  so 
much  to  teach  and  to  communicate  a  large  and  varied  as- 
sortment of  things  as  it  is  to  bring  out  into  expression  the 
ever-living  unity  that  is  in  all  things."  Education  should 
not  command;  it  should  nurture  and  cultivate.  All  out- 
ward action  is  to  be  the  expression  of  the  inner  life.  In  a 
sense  it  is  to  be  more,  indeed.  It  is  to  be  the  expression  of 
that  great  universal  spirit  that  underlies  all  existence,  which 
is  the  divine  unity  of  existence.  Stripped  of  its  peculiar 
philosophical  and  religious  phraseology,  this  doctrine  is  not 
far  removed  from  much  of  the  later  evolutionary  doctrine. 

Froebel's  Psychology. — Froebel 's  psychology  shows  some 
wonderful  insight  and  some  strange  lapses.  It  is  too  ex- 
tensive a  subject  to  be  developed  here ;  but  it  may  be  said, 
on  the  side  of  his  larger  insight,  that  he  recognized  the 
manner  in  which  the  world  of  objects  develops  in  the  child's 
mind.  Objects  do  not  stand  forth  fully-made  in  the  per- 
ceptions of  the  child;  they  come  into  his  experience  in  the 
actual  development  of  that  experience  and  through  the 
slow  growth  of  the  powers  of  sensation,  perception,  and 
finally  of  thought.  But  he  rather  curiously  supposes  that 
all  development  is  by  a  conflict  between  opposite  powers, 
capacities,  and  sensibilities.  So  he  sets  sensations  over 


FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN      331 

against  each  other  in  rather  mechanical  fashion.  His  psy- 
chology was  inevitably  warped  by  his  religious  interests 
and  his  pedagogical  aims. 

Again,  we  must  note  that  his  general  doctrine  of  educa- 
tion, which  grew  out  of  his  religious  and  philosophical  in- 
terests, implies  a  psychology  of  unfolding — that  is  to  say, 
all  that  is  to  be  in  the  long  experience  of  the  individual  is 
infolded  within  the  child  at  birth;  and  all  that  a  proper 
education  can  rightly  do  is  to  endeavor  to  unfold  this  pre- 
viously infolded  life.  There  is  doubtless  a  great  truth 
here — that  the  whole  career  of  the  child  is  closely  bound  up 
in  the  problems  of  his  heredity.  But  there  is  also  a  great 
fallacy — that  education  involves  no  new  factors,  produces 
no  reconstructions.  Perhaps  Froebel  did  not  intend  this  in 
any  narrow  sense.  In  many  respects  he  sets  forth  doc- 
trines which  are  close  to  the  evolutionary  doctrines  so  soon 
to  be  developed,  but  the  full  significance  of  the  evolutionary 
movement — the  work  of  Darwin — was  not  presented  in 
Froebel's  lifetime.  Hence  he  could  scarcely  conceive  of  an 
evolving  environment,  that  is  to  say,  an  environment  ex- 
pressing continuous  change,  whose  educational  significance 
would  therefore  be  continuously  changing.  For  Froebel, 
like  all  other  pioneers,  was  fighting  his  way  through  un- 
known regions,  exploring  the  hidden  reaches  of  human  na- 
ture. He  did  not  always  find  reliable  results.  He  some- 
times mistook  hopes  for  realities,  and  he  saw  some  great 
highways  of  educational  commerce,  where  now  we  can  see 
little  but  blind  alleys.  For  example,  he  over-emphasized 
what  he  calls  "gifts,"  a  doctrine  which  has  proved  itself 
to  be  merely  the  older  conception  of  a  formal  discipline 
illustrated  by  means  of  objects. 

But  the  general  doctrine  of  the  self-activity  of  the  child 
underlies  every  constructive  educational  theory  and  every 
effective  educational  practice  of  the  present;  and  the  kin- 


332  DEMOCKACY  IN  EDUCATION 

dergarten,  at  its  best,  is  a  complete  demonstration  of  this 
fact.  That  much,  at  least,  has  been  gained  by  Froebel's 
work,  and  it  will  never  pass  away.  To  be  sure,  some  of 
his  followers  have  mistaken  the  husk  of  the  doctrine  for 
the  kernel,  and  they  have  attempted  to  make  the  kinder- 
garten a  place  of  definitely  formal  discipline  through  the 
use  of  chosen  materials.  Froebel's  gifts  have  not  infre- 
quently been  erected  into  ultimate  educational  materials. 
His  doctrines  have  become  almost  sacred  in  the  thought  of 
some,  so  that  a  certain  type  of  kindergartner  still  takes  the 
literal  words  of  Froebel  with  something  of  the  sacred  finality 
of  the  medieval  religious  devotee.  But  a  prophet  cannot 
be  held  responsible  for  the  follies  of  all  his  followers. 

The  whole  story  of  the  work  of  Froebel  should  be  taken 
up  in  his  own  writings,  mainly  in  the  "Education  of 
Man,"  in  which  he  deals  with  the  fundamental  moral  and 
religious  problems  of  education  and  expresses  his  conclu- 
sions in  the  doctrine  of  activity  and  in  the  working  out  of 
a  curriculum  which  should  secure  ''the  union  of  the  school 
and  life,  of  domestic  and  scholastic  life."  Also  in  his 
"Pedagogics  of  the  Kindergarten,"  in  which  he  develops 
his  theory  of  symbolism,  a  theory  which  has  been  such  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  literalists  among  his  followers.  To 
a  man  of  great  mystical  nature,  a  poet,  such  words  as  the 
following  are  helpful  and  harmless:  "The  cube  is  to  the 
child  the  representative  of  each  continually  developing 
manifold  body.  The  child  has  an  intimation  in  it  of  the 
unity  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  manifoldness  and 
from  which  the  latter  proceeds. ' '  But  to  a  later  literalistic 
follower  such  words  can  bring  nothing  but  confusion,  the 
straining  to  get  something  out  of  a  cube  which  is  not  there, 
to  impress  children  with  meanings  that  do  not  exist.  As 
Professor  Dewey  says,  "We  often  teach  insincerity,  and 
instill  sentimentalism,  and  foster  sensationalism  when  we 


FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN      333 

think  we  are  teaching  truths  by  means  of  symbols."  Or, 
as  Professor  Thorndike  suggests  in  his  "Notes  on  Child 
Study,"  "If  we  (adults)  live  in  houses  because  they  sym- 
bolize protection,  if  we  like  to  see  Sherlock  Holmes  on  the 
stage  because  he  symbolizes  craft  to  us  ...  if  we  eat 
apples  because  they  symbolize  to  us  the  fall  of  man,  .  .  . 
then  perhaps  the  children  play  with  the  ball  because  it 
symbolizes  to  them  'infinite  development  and  absolute  limi- 
tation.' " 

Of  course  it  is  not  fair  to  blame  all  perversions  of  mean- 
ing upon  an  author.  And  it  is  not  so  certain  as  some  of  the 
modern  psychologists  seem  to  think  that  children  get  no 
symbolic  meanings  out  of  objects;  undoubtedly  the  vague, 
far  roots  of  later  ideal  meanings  are  hidden  in  the  soil  of 
the  child's  experiences.  Pestalozzi  hoped  to  "mechanize 
instruction";  but  that  fails  because  it  is  too  completely 
materialistic.  Froebel  hopes  to  "spiritualize  instruction"; 
but  that  fails  because  it  does  not  give  us  any  clue  whatever 
to  the  methods  of  control.  But  just  as  we  still  work  for 
a  more  complete  understanding  of  the  mechanics  of  in- 
struction, so  we  still  work  for  a  more  essential  grasp  upon 
the  meanings  of  education.  Hence  we  can  be  grateful  for 
the  contributions  that  Froebel  has  made,  while  at  the  same 
time  denying  the  validity  of  many  of  his  proposals  and  still 
more  the  fantastic  misinterpretations  which  his  literal  fol- 
lowers have  made  of  his  legitimate  doctrines.  The  general 
spirit  of  his  work  was  wholly  constructive,  and  he  prob- 
ably approaches  nearest  to  a  full  expression  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  education  and  the  modes  of  its  development  of  any 
of  the  nineteenth  century  workers.  But  his  work  is  con- 
fined to  the  period  of  infancy,  within  which  the  task  of 
organization  is  comparatively  simple.  The  extension  of  the 
same  principles  to  the  later  years, — that  is,  the  working  out 
of  the  methods  by  which  this  same  principle  of  self -activity 


334  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

can  be  conserved  and  depended  upon  all  through  the  years 
of  youth  and  on  into  the  adult  years, — is  one  of  the  larger 
aspects  of  the  whole  educational  problem  of  the  present. 
Not  in  his  mysticism,  nor  even  in  his  nobler  idealism,  are 
we  to  look  for  the  real  significance  of  Froebel's  work.  It 
is  in  his  emphasis  upon  the  self -activity  of  the  child — the 
child  not  merely  as  an  object  to  be  educated,  but  as  the 
subject  of  his  own  education. 

After  Froebel. — With  Froebel  we  come  to  the  end  of  the 
line  of  constructive  educational  thinkers  in  the  psychologi- 
cal succession  until  near  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
when  the  new  movement  in  educational  psychology  begins. 
Pestalozzi  of  course  had  his  followers  in  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica ;  Herbart  started  a  great  wave  of  investigation  and  prop- 
aganda that  became  the  dominant  influence  in  America  for 
twenty  years,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century;  Froebel  and  his 
kindergartens  are  with  us  more  and  more.  But  no  one  of 
these  interpretations  of  educational  processes  is  complete 
or  final,  and  work  that  is  done  in  the  traditional  succession 
of  any  one  of  these  is  not  final.  Each  of  these  represents 
a  very  necessary  element  in  the  larger  synthesis  of  the  edu- 
cational movement,  but  each  by  itself  is  out  of  equilibrium. 
That  fact,  however,  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  movement, 
of  progress ;  and  the  pioneer  work  of  these  three  great  lead- 
ers will  stimulate  further  thinking  for  centuries. 

Perhaps  these  contributions  were  as  complete  as  the  age 
in  which  they  were  made  could  endure  or  understand. 
Even  to-day  the  psychological  point  of  view  is  still  unac- 
ceptable to  many  types  of  teachers.  Perhaps,  too,  the  gen- 
eral background  of  life  and  thought  made  more  conclusive 
work  impossible.  We  must  remember  that  the  old  concep- 
tions of  the  origin  and  nature  of  life  still  prevailed,  that 
evolutionism  had  not  yet  arisen.  Perhaps  the  world  must 


FROEBEL  AND  THE  KINDERGARTEN      335 

catch  up  in  its  thinking  along  many  other  lines  before  this 
psychological  statement  of  education  can  either  be  complete 
in  itself  or  be  convincing  to  the  world.  When  Kant  at- 
tempted to  stand  on  the  heights  of  philosophy  and  psy- 
chology, in  order  that  he  might  see  all  parts  of  human  ex- 
perience from  the  standpoint  of  the  whole,  he  still  stood 
in  the  midst  of  preevolutionary  conceptions  of  human  na- 
ture and  experience.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  all  this  began  to  change.  Darwin  gave  to  the 
world  his  revolutionary  theory  of  the  origin  and  nature  of 
life,  including  human  life,  and  in  the  succeeding  years, 
even  until  the  present,  the  conviction  has  slowly  grown 
that  this  general  conception  of  evolution  must  be  applied  to 
every  phase  of  our  understanding  of  the  world.  Man 
takes  his  place  as  in  and  of  the  universe.  His  physical 
life  is  continuous  with  the  common  story  of  life  upon  the 
earth;  his  institutions  are  a  part  of  the  whole  story  of 
restless  history.  Psychology  therefore  must  become  the 
study  of  the  whole  of  life  and  mind,  not  merely  of  the  ex- 
clusive mind  of  man.  Here  at  last  man  sinks  into  his 
proper  setting  in  the  general  movement  of  universal  evolu- 
tion. He  can  be  no  longer  studied  apart,  separate,  and 
alone,  for  his  being  is  one  with  the  nature  of  the  world. 
And  if  he  rises  above  the  world  in  intellectual  or  moral 
dignity,  that  will  be  an  achievement,  not  a  gift. 

The  meaning  of  evolution  for  our  study  of  education 
will  accordingly  concern  us  next,  and  to  that  we  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

> 

THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION 

OUR  whole  study  up  to  the  present  has  shown  us  the  long 
spectacle  of  a  more  or  less  continuous  conflict  between  two 
definite  tendencies  in  human  nature.  We  have  been  calling 
these  tendencies  after  the  fashion  of  their  continuous  mani- 
festations. On  the  one  hand  we  have  had  the  folkways, 
with  their  social  customs  and  traditions,  and  their  indi- 
vidual expressions  in  habit  and  conformity;  on  the  other 
hand  we  have  seen  the  recurrent  expressions  of  revolt,  of 
innovation  and  invention,  and  the  demand  that  room  shall 
be  provided  for  growth  and  change.  Both  these  aspects 
of  life  are  natural;  both  are  persistent;  and  each  has  its 
characteristic  implications  for  the  full  statement  of  human 
experience.  We  have  seen  how  the  former,  the  folkway 
type,  attempted  to  state  all  aspects  of  human  life  and  hope 
and  destiny  in  terms  of  one,  great,  all-inclusive  system  of 
practice  and  theory  in  medievalism.  We  have  seen  how 
the  other  phase  of  experience  had  its  representatives  and 
its  expressions  all  through  the  ages,  even  when  such  ex- 
pressions were  distinctly  not  socially  accepted.  But  until 
far  down  in  the  modern  period  no  satisfactory  theory  of 
the  attitude  of  revolt  or  of  change  had  come  to  clear  state- 
ment, despite  the  fact  that  many  revolutions  had  transpired 
and  many  changes  had  taken  place.  Men  were  doing  things 
under  the  pressure  of  events  which  no  acceptable  theory  or 
philosophy  had  been  able  to  justify.  The  attitude  of  in- 
novation, represented  in  the  work  of  Socrates,  Jesus,  Mar- 
tin Luther,  and  Rousseau,  while  it  expressed  the  hopes  of 

336 


THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION        337 

mankind,  as  over  against  the  tragic  stagnation  of  the  folk- 
way  ideal,  had  no  conclusive  argument  to  offer  in  its  own 
justification  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Then,  not  suddenly,  but  none  the  less  with  a  considerable 
emotional  shock  to  the  world,  all  these  constructive  and 
progressive  movements  and  hopes  of  the  past  seemed  to 
find  their  complete  statement  and  justification  in  the  theory 
of  evolution. 

Antecedents  of  the  Evolutionary  Doctrine. — The  ortho- 
dox doctrine  underlying  all  old  folkway  social  orders  de- 
scribes the  world  in  final  terms.  The  world  was  created 
at  a  rather  definite  time  by  the  work  of  a  special  Creator ; 
life  was  created,  also,  and  put  into  the  world ;  and  man  was 
created  in  the  same  way  and  put  into  the  world,  being  given 
command  to  master  the  world  and  learn  it.  At  the  same 
time  and  in  the  same  manner  all  our  social,  industrial,  po- 
litical, religious,  and  educational  institutions  were  created 
and  given  to  men.  Human  life  was  planned  out  from  the 
first ;  its  habitat  was  established,  its  limitations  determined 
upon,  its  destiny  decided,  and  its  institutions  properly  set 
forth.  This  attitude  of  mind  is  rather  vague  in  the  primi- 
tive folkways,  but  it  develops  detail  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory and  becomes  fully  elaborated  and  explicit  in  the  high- 
est stage  of  medieval  organization. 

But  in  the  early  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  this 
old  theory  began  to  fall  to  pieces,  and  by  the  middle  of 
the  century  another  doctrine  had  been  quite  fully  elabo- 
rated. The  older  theory  had  been  undermined  by  century- 
long  explorations  in  many  lines,  following  the  lead  of  age- 
old  human  hopes  and  activities.  Geology  was  beginning  to 
show  that  the  earth  had  had  a  long  history  and  that  it  was 
still  in  the  processes  of  creation.  Paleontology  was  show- 
ing that  living  forms  had  had  a  gradual  development  from 
the  more  simple  to  the  more  complicated.  Comparative 


338  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

anatomy  was  showing  similarities  and  parallelisms  of  devel- 
opment among  all  forms  of  animal  life.  Anthropology  was 
demonstrating  the  long  struggle  of  human  life  upward  from 
the  near-brutish. 

Again,  philosophy  had  been  trying  for  centuries  to  find 
some  inclusive  statement  of  the  nature  of  the  world  which 
would  still  leave  room  for  change.  Kantian  psychology 
had  opened  the  way  to  a  theory  of  growth  by  setting  up  its 
theory  of  the  creativeness  of  the  inner  life.  Following 
Kant,  Hegel  in  particular  urges  this  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment, with  the  gradual  emergence  of  new  forms,  new  func- 
tions, and  new  meanings.  For  Hegel  (at  least  until  he 
comes  to  his  Absolute),  the  significance  of  life  is  found 
not  in  what  is,  or  in  what  has  been  done,  but  in  what  has 
been  promised,  and  the  permanence  and  security  of  life 
are  found  in  the  fact  of  change.  That  which  becomes  final, 
degenerates.  The  security  of  life  can  be  assured  only  in 
so  far  as  continuous  change  can  be  assured.  The  striking 
feature  of  this  doctrine  is  this:  that  all  the  struggle  of 
history  is  but  the  effort  of  the  absolute  to  free  itself  from 
the  bounds  of  the  unconscious  and  to  become  fully  con- 
scious. Despite  the  fact  that  Hegel  rather  assumed  that  in 
his  own  philosophy  the  absolute  had  finally  achieved  this 
aim,  this  doctrine  of  the  evolution  of  the  absolute  helps  to 
prepare  the  world  for  the  more  real  doctrine  of  evolution. 
Herbert  Spencer's  work  in  various  fields  of  scientific  and 
philosophical  speculation  helped  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
coming  of  the  culminating  work,  the  "Theory  of  Evolu- 
tion," in  the  presentations  of  Charles  Darwin  and  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace. 

The  Significance  of  the  Doctrine. — The  theory  of  evolu- 
tion stands  for  many  things,  not  all  of  which  are  either  true 
or  equally  important.  Its  simplest  statement  might  be  set 
forth  in  such  words  as  these,  "Everything  has  a  history." 


THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION        339 

For  our  purposes  in  this  study  we  may  say  that  it  sug- 
gests some  such  principles  as  the  following :  the  inadequacy 
of  certain  old  doctrines  of  the  origin  of  the  world;  the  in- 
terrelationship of  all  forms  of  life  upon  the  earth;  the 
more  or  less  gradual  development  and  complication  of  the 
organic  structures  of  animal  and  human  life,  especially  the 
coordinate  development  of  neural  and  muscular  systems 
as  means  of  control  in  the  struggles  of  living  forms  with 
their  organic  and  inorganic  environmental  conditions;  the 
continuity  of  life  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  forms ;  and 
the  final  denial  of  the  adequacy  of  the  Aristotelian  type  of 
logic  as  a  complete  description  of  the  forms  of  human 
thinking. 

The  evolutionary  doctrine  throws  a  reflected  light  back 
over  all  the  past  and  clears  up  many  things  that  have  ap- 
peared strange  all  along  our  way.  History  has  been  an 
evolution, — we  can  see  and  say  that  now, — though  it  has 
always  been  interpreted  as  a  fixed  system  and  a  final  order, 
The  first  interpretations  of  the  world  were,  as  we  have  seen, 
folkway  interpretations,  developed  in  the  midst  of  rela- 
tively fixed  conditions  of  the  primitive  group.  These  ear- 
liest interpretations  always  assume  the  special  creation  of 
the  world.  Everything  that  is  in  the  world  was  likewise 
created.  Man  was  created,  put  into  the  world,  and  told  to 
learn  it,  conquer  it,  and  control  it.  That  was  seemingly  a 
process  to  be  gone  through  with  once ;  after  that  the  world 
of  things  should  have  become  a  world  of  knowledge,  of 
fixed  ways  of  living,  of  fixed  social  organization,  of  fixed 
interpretations  of  all  things,  and  of  finished  processes  of 
development. 

Of  course  these  fixed  systems  would  never  remain  fixed ; 
and  there  have  always  been  embarrassing  difficulties  in 
getting  from  one  of  these  final  stages  to  the  next  one.  But 
such  logical  jumps  have  been  made  by  all  peoples  in  all 


340  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

stages  of  their  development,  so  that  it  would  almost  seem 
as  if  there  had  developed  during  the  course  of  the  ages  a 
sort  of  gentleman's  agreement  not  to  notice  this  fatal  de- 
fect in  the  folkway  logic.  At  any  rate,  the  persistent 
tendency  of  the  folkway  attitude  is  to  reduce  the  whole  of 
life  to  habit,  custom,  and  tradition.  And  this  tendency 
includes  within  its  scope  all  aspects  of  the  social  world,  so 
that  the  social  institutions  are  as  much  a  part  of  the  final 
nature  of  things  as  are  the  physical  features  of  the  earth. 
"Jehovah  ended  his  work  on  the  seventh  day;  and  he  rested 
on  the  seventh  day  from  all  his  work. ' ' 

This  creation  theory  assumes  that  the  world  was  put  to- 
gether from  the  outside;  there  seems  to  be  nothing  of  life 
and  growth  within  the  process  itself.  Plants  and  animals 
were  all  made;  man,  himself,  was  "formed"  and  the  breath 
of  life  was  "breathed  into  him";  a  fixed  nature  was  set  up 
for  him,  with  ' '  everything  created  after  its  kind. ' '  And  it 
is  the  obvious  implication  of  this  theory  that  all  man's  life 
is  laid  out  for  him  as  fixedly  as  any  other  aspect  of  the 
creation  was  determined.  Some  such  story  as  this  appears 
practically  everywhere  in  the  primitive  group  life. 

Criticism  of  this  Conception  of  the  Nature  of  the  World. 
— We  have  already  seen  how  throughout  history  there  have 
been  those  who  have  not  been  satisfied  with  this  folkway 
interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  human  life  and  experience. 
Their  dissatisfactions  have  been  of  the  nature  of  impulse, — 
a  primitive  breath  of  original  life,  an  energy  of  the  will, 
rather  than  a  clear  idea.  But  evidence  has  slowly  accumu- 
lated through  the  centuries.  Revolutions  have  been  fought 
out  in  all  the  major  interests  of  life.  The  inner  life  of  the 
race  has  revolted  against  the  mechanisms  of  folkway  exist- 
ence of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  Renaissance  is  the  result ; 
the  religious  aspirations  of  the  race  have  fought  for  free- 
dom from  the  institutionalisms  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 


THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION        341 

the  Reformation  and  Protestantism  and  religious  liberalism 
are  the  result;  the  intellect  demands  its  freedom  from  the 
''received  opinions"  of  the  scholastics,  and  science  grad- 
ually rises  out  of  the  mass  of  common  doctrine;  the  civic 
hope  of  the  race  breaks  through  all  barriers  of  "divine 
right"  and  the  like,  and  democracy  becomes  a  progressive 
realization.  All  these  are  impulses,  and  they  are  fighting 
against  dogmatisms,  intellectualisms,  and  institutionalisms 
of  all  sorts.  This  is  not  fancy ;  it  is  the  history  of  the  race. 
And  after  many  centuries  the  impulses  of  growth,  revolt, 
and  intelligence  culminate.  History  comes  to  a  new  climax ; 
a  new  theory  of  the  nature  of  the  world,  of  human  life  and 
human  experience,  is  set  forth,  a  theory  that  in  dignity  and 
significance  is  worthy  to  take  its  place  alongside  the  older 
theory  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  to  contend  with  that  theory 
for  the  allegiance  of  the  world.  History  thus  becomes  con- 
scious of  its  own  movements  and  its  own  inner  workings  in 
a  new  and  deeper  sense;  it  justifies  the  restlessness  of  its 
past  and  becomes  avowedly  and  intentionally  evolutionary 
in  its  ideals  and  its  modes.  And  from  this  time  forward 
history  may  be  studied  in  the  hope  that  the  race  will  learn, 
at  least  in  some  measure,  the  processes  of  making  history, 
so  that  the  future  will  be  somewhat  under  the  control  of 
human  intention. 

The  Reinterpretation  of  the  World  According  to  Evo- 
lution.— Practically  the  whole  structure  of  civilization  had 
been  built  up  under  the  dominance  of  the  belief  in  the  story 
of  creation,  including  the  creation  of  all  the  institutions  of 
human  life,  and  even  human  nature  itself.  This  mechani- 
cal origin  of  the  world  justified  the  terrible  inequalities 
and  injustices  of  life  and  gave  the  sanction  of  religion  to 
the  continuance  of  these  conditions.  All  the  established 
privileges  of  the  established  orders  of  earth  were  bolstered 
up  in  the  sacredness  of  the  creation  story.  All  the  hopes 


342  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  nobler  social  order  of  the  future  are  involved  in 
establishing  that  the  creation  story  is  no  more  sacred  than 
the  evolution  story,  and  in  the  working  out  of  the  social 
method  by  which  this  evolutionary  attitude  can  be  made 
effective  in  all  social  relationships.  The  whole  issue  of 
civilization  may  be  said  to  be  joined  at  this  point.  Eco- 
nomic, social,  political,  ethical,  religious,  and  educational 
values  are  concerned.  It  is  the  struggle  between  a  me- 
chanical order,  implied  in  the  theory  of  creation,  and  a 
living  and  personal  order,  implied  in  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion. The  creation  theory  presupposes  a  machine-world 
that,  once  set  up,  runs  itself.  All  the  institutionalisms  of 
the  past,  from  the  folkways  of  the  primitive  world  to  the 
reactionisms  of  our  present  politico-industrial  order,  rely 
for  their  security  upon  this  machine-world  with  its  ma- 
chine-logic. "Whatever  is,  is  right."  All  the  possi- 
bilities of  realizing  the  hopes  of  a  nobler  living,  socially 
and  educationally, — such  hopes  as  were  implicit  in  the 
teachings  of  Socrates  and  Jesus, — must  rely  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  this  other  theory,  with  its  insistence  that  in- 
stitutions shall  be  fluid  enough  to  change  as  the  conditions 
of  living  change ;  that  man  is  superior  to  institutions ;  that 
institutions  must  serve  human  need ;  that  institutions  must 
submit  to  the  judgment  of  the  present;  and  that  nothing 
has  a  right  to  exist  save  that  which  really  serves  human  need 
in  some  genuine  way. 

Significance  of  this  Theory  for  Education. — The  full 
meanings  of  this  revolution  are  not  yet  clear.  Perhaps  it 
is  one  of  the  implications  of  the  doctrine  that  they  will  not 
ever  all  become  clear.  But  we  know  enough  about  it  to 
know  that  it  means  some  very  profound  things  for  educa- 
tional theory  and  practice.  In  the  first  place,  education 
will  be  by  evolution,  rather  than  by  external  creation,  if 


THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION        343 

the  most  obvious  aspect  of  the  theory  is  acknowledged.     But 
such  a  statement  may  mean  very  little.     Let  us  see. 

There  is  now  an  evolutionary  psychology  which  has  its 
full  significance  for  education.  According  to  this  psychol- 
ogy the  mind  of  man  is  an  instrument  in  the  general  process 
of  living,  not  a  basket  to  be  filled  with  intellectual  contents 
or  wits  to  be  sharpened  for  formal  intellectual  conflicts. 
Education  comes,  therefore,  in  the  general  processes  of 
living,  rather  than  in  some  abstract  and  usually  unreal 
process  of  learning.  All  the  institutions  are  elements  in 
the  process  by  which  man  has  gained,  and  will  continue 
to  regain,  control  over  the  conditions  in  which  he  lives. 
All  institutions  are,  therefore,  subject  to  the  recon- 
structive modes  of  experience.  This  will  include  the 
school.  There  was  a  time  when  schools,  in  the  academic 
sense,  did  not  exist.  Education  went  on  without  their  aid. 
They  finally  came  in  response  to  a  definite  need  and  for  the 
accomplishment  of  definite  purposes.  Those  needs  and  pur- 
poses are  themselves  the  functions  of  changing  conditions. 
The  schools  and  education  must  be  subject  to  the  same 
changes.  That  education  which  was  developed  to  meet  a 
certain  social  function  in  a  certain  past  age  may  well  fail 
to  serve  the  purposes  of  education  in  this  age  under 
changed  conditions.  But  schools,  like  all  institutions,  are 
very  conservative  and  loath  to  give  up.  They  tend  to  main- 
tain their  existence  long  after  that  existence  is  construct- 
ively useful,  because  dealing  with  old  informations,  as  they 
do  so  largely,  they  do  not  always  recognize  when  their 
existence  has  ceased  to  be  vital  As  a  result,  they  not  infre- 
quently remain  as  a  sort  of  second  environment  (to  speak 
in  evolutionary  terms)  over  against  the  real  environment  of 
the  child's  active  life.  They  may  thus  greatly  complicate 
the  educational  problem,  without  greatly  aiding  in  its  solu- 


344  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tion.  The  schools  may  even  accept  the  general  theory  of 
evolution  and  teach  it  as  a  sort  of  timeless  doctrine,  while 
at  the  same  time  retaining  obstructive  survivals  of  old 
methods  of  social  functioning  which,  under  the  changed 
conditions  of  to-day,  offer  no  convincing  reason  for  their 
existence  in  their  present  form.  Intelligence  is  not  a  fixed 
and  final  thing,  created,  uncovered,  or  invented  once  for 
all.  It  is  as  fluid  as  the  conditions  of  existence.  There 
is  no  end  to  the  possibilities  of  its  developments.  But  there 
is  an  ever-present  blind  alley  into  which  intelligence  is  for- 
ever running  and  forever  losing  itself.  This  blind  alley  is 
habit.  Blind  alleys  are  extremely  useful  institutions  for 
some  purposes,  but  not  for  thoroughfares.  The  only  escape 
from  a  blind  alley  is  by  way  of  the  original  entrance,  or 
else  by  laying  waste  the  fences  of  the  neighborhood. 
.  The  theory  of  education  has  been  wonderfully  broadened 
in  its  scope  by  the  development  of  the  theory  of  evolution. 
All  history  now  pays  tribute  to  the  education  of  the  race, 
and  all  our  social  institutions  and  activities  are  now  seen  to 
be  intimately  related  to  the  outcome  of  any  educational 
effort.  The  theory  of  evolution  has  dramatized  the  mental 
life  of  man  and  made  psychology  the  most  intensely  human 
of  all  studies — when  it  is  studied  humanly.  The  structure 
of  civilization  has  been  put  upon  broader  and  more  secure 
bases — universal  bases,  we  may  say.  The  life  of  man  has 
been  integrated  with  the  very  nature  of  the  world.  He 
was  not  created  and  put  into  the  world;  he  has  grown  up 
with  the  world,  and  the  marks  of  its  storms  and  stresses 
are  in  his  features.  He  has  whatever  of  permanence  or 
reality  the  world  itself  possesses.  All  the  rich  and  varied 
wealth  of  the  world's  physical  and  moral  resources  are 
available  for  his  use  as  fast  as  he  can  uncover  them  and 
learn  how  to  use  them.  They  are  his  to  use ;  they  are  not 
alien  to  his  nature.  They  are  of  the  essence  of  his  nature, 


THE  CULMINATION  IN  EVOLUTION         345 

and  he  is  of  theirs,  since  all  are  products  of  the  same  funda- 
mental creative  processes. 

This  intimacy  between  man  and  the  world,  out  of  which 
he  is  to  make  his  real  life,  is  of  the  utmost  significance  for 
education.  No  longer  must  the  old  doctrine  of  the  antag- 
onism between  man's  highest  interests  and  the  world  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  realization  of  human  good ;  no  longer  shall 
the  doctrine  that  the  world  belongs  to  the  evil  one  paralyze 
human  effort  toward  the  good.  The  doctrine  of  evolution 
implies  that,  little  by  little,  humanity  will  learn  how  to  con- 
trol the  conditions  of  existence  so  that  the  really  desirable 
elements  of  human  good  shall  be  realized.  Evolutionary 
science  has  this  aim:  "The  task  of  science  is  found  in 
working  out  the  conditions  which  will  make  a  good  life  pos- 
sible. ' '  Central  in  this  task  will  be  that  of  psychology,  and 
especially  educational  psychology.  We  cannot  see  as  yet  all 
that  this  will  mean  for  education.  But  we  know  that  it 
will  mean  much,  too,  for  democracy,  for  the  pruning  away 
of  old  social,  moral,  and  religious  excesses,  and  for  the  en- 
larging organization  of  society  for  intelligent  purposes,  in 
place  of  old  folkway  goals  and  the  goals  of  blind  impulse. 

But  such  a  broad  and  generous  view  of  life  will  come 
to  the  world  slowly.  It  will  be  fought  by  many  influences, 
both  open  and  insidious.  Religion  will  fight  it  because  it 
will  seem  to  be  altogether  anti-religious ;  morality  will  fight 
it,  for  it  seems  to  compel  men  to  ' '  reel  back  into  the  brute ' ' ; 
poetry  will  be  enlisted  against  it. 

I  think  we  are  not  wholly  brain  .  .  . 
Not  merely  cunning  casts  in  clay  .  .  . 
Let  Science  prove  we  are,  and  then, 
What  matters  Science  unto  men? 

But  little  by  little  the  meaning  of  the  conception  will  dawn, 
and  it  will  be  seen  that — 


346  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Life  is  not  as  idle  ore, 
But  iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 
And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  dipped  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  battered  with  the  shocks  of  doom, 
To  shape  and  use. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  perhaps  the  most  vigorous  ob- 
jections to  the  new  doctrines  will  come  from  scientists  of 
the  older  type  who  are  unable  to  make  their  adjustments 
to  the  new  mood  and  attitude.  The  accomplishments  of 
science  in  the  past  are  all  too  apt  to  become  obstacles  to  the 
further  development  of  science.  At  any  rate,  as  we  go  on 
with  our  story  we  shall  see  that  not  infrequently  old  science 
stands  in  the  way  of  new  science.  But  our  studies  in  the 
logic  of  history,  as  set  'forth  here,  should  save  us  from 
surprise.  Science,  itself,  is  no  magic  matter;  as  developed 
materials  it  is  just  as  likely  to  become  complacent  of  its  ac- 
complishments as  any  other  body  of  materials  ever  became 
in  any  folkway  age.  Indeed,  just  because  the  methods  of 
science  seem  so  exact  and  final,  the  materials  secured  are  not 
unlikely  to  bear  a  more  definite  mark  of  finality.  The  only 
assurance  of  the  permanence  of  the  scientific  attitude  is  the 
recognition  that  science  is  not  materials  at  all,  but  the  spirit 
of  inquiry  at  work  in  the  service  of  man's  far-reaching  hopes 
of  a  better  world  and  a  nobler  life.  But  we  shall  see  more 
of  this  attitude  of  science  in  the  following  section. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE  EFFORTS  OF  SCIENCE  TO  SOLVE  THE  PROBLEM  OF 
EDUCATION 

THE  theory  of  evolution  came  to  science  from  the  field  of 
the  biological  sciences.  It  was  first  a  suggested  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  species  and  their  interrelationships; 
and  afterwards  it  was  a  theory  of  the  origin  of  living  forms, 
including  the  descent  of  man  from  that  hypothetical  origin. 
Now  the  work  of  the  scientists  in  their  laboratories,  or  in 
their  long  explorations  about  the  world,  had  been  rather 
far  removed  from  the  work  of  the  philosophers  and  psychol- 
ogists in  their  more  quiet  studies.  Darwin,  however,  saw 
rather  clearly  that  this  new  theory  was  certain  to  affect  in 
profound  ways  the  old  attitudes  of  both  the  philosophers 
and  the  psychologists.  Of  course  practically  all  the  philo- 
sophical interests  that  were  in  any  way  under  the  dom- 
inance of  religious  motives  opposed  the  new  theory.  Not 
alone  from  the  religionists,  however,  did  this  opposition 
come;  the  traditional  scientists  stood  firm  against  the  new 
doctrines.  It  was  a  crucial  time  in  the  history  of  science, 
as  well  as  in  the  history  of  humanity.  It  involved  new 
leaderships  in  science,  and  old  leaders  always  protest  against 
the  new  in  any  field.  It  involved  the  making  over  of  all  the 
ranges  of  human  knowledge,  and  that  always  seems  like  an 
impossible  task.  Besides,  it  seemed  as  if  humanity  were 
asked  to  cross  a  great  fixed  gulf  which  would  cut  off  all 
communication  with  the  past  and  with  all  those  values  in 
defense  of  which  both  religion  and  the  older  science  had 
been  engaged. 

347 


348  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  New  Psychology. — Nowhere  did  this  great  gulf  seem 
more  complete  or  more  fateful  than  in  the  field  of  psychol- 
ogy. The  doctrines  of  the  older  psychology,  reaching  from 
Aristotle  to  Kant,  had  gathered  around  Psyche,  the  soul. 
This  Psyche  was  somewhat  of  a  stranger  on  the  earth,  un- 
dergoing experiences,  learning,  and  discipline.  On  the 
educational  side  it  was  implicitly  held  that  learning  is  a 
process  of  taking  on  materials,  and  hence  the  continued 
emphasis  upon  some  form  of  materialism ;  also  in  this  proc- 
ess memory  plays  a  most  important  part,  since  it  is  the 
storehouse  of  these  materials.  Toward  the  latter  part  of 
this  period,  not  many  decades  before  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion arrived,  the  doctrines  of  intellectualism  became  par- 
ticularly insistent.  Hamilton,  the  Scotch  philosopher,  had 
declared,  "Man  is  not  an  organism;  he  is  an  intelligence 
served  by  organs. "  It  is  true  that,  over  against  this  intel- 
lectualism of  the  enlightenment,  the  newer  thought,  initiated 
by  Kousseau,  had  suggested  that  mind  develops  by  processes 
analogous  to  growth, — that  is,  by  inner  processes,  rather 
than  by  those  external  processes  of  taking  on  materials. 
The  psychology  that  was  implicit  in  the  new  doctrines  of 
evolution  was  to  be  much  more  closely  related  to  this  doc- 
trine of  growth  than  to  the  older  intellectualism.  And 
Darwin,  both  in  his  "Descent  of  Man"  and  in  his  "Expres- 
sion of  Emotions  in  Animals  and  Man, ' '  shows  that  he  feels 
this  closer  relationship  to  the  later  type  of  thought.  Spen- 
cer, also,  feels  something  of  the  same  kinship.  But  on  the 
whole,  the  task  of  reinterpreting  the  standpoint  of  psychol- 
ogy and  the  working  over  of  the  materials  of  the  older 
analysis  into  the  new  is  too  big  for  one  generation. 
Psychology  is  written  in  much  the  old  strain  for  decades 
after  the  publication  of  Darwin's  work,  and  it  is  not,  indeed, 
until  the  publication  of  the  larger  work  of  James,  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  the  real  bearing  of 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  349 

the  evolutionary  theory  upon  the  organization  of  psychology 
becomes  evident.  What  of  the  meantime?  Well,  Spencer 
states  the  case  with  characteristic  fullness  and  naivete.  He 
says  in  his  "Education,"  "Though  it  is  not  possible  for  a 
scheme  of  culture  to  be  perfected  either  in  matter  or  form 
until  a  rational  psychology  has  been  established,  it  is  possi- 
ble with  the  aid  of  certain  guiding  principles  to  make  em- 
pirical approximations  toward  a  perfect  scheme."  That 
is  to  say,  in  the  absence  of  a  rational  psychology  he  will 
fall  back  upon  the  maxims  of  common  practice,  which  are 
for  him  partly  Pestalozzian,  partly  of  the  folkways. 

Now,  as  Spencer  points  out  elsewhere  in  the  same  discus- 
sion, a  satisfactory  organization  of  the  materials  of  educa- 
tion into  the  form  of  a  curriculum  will  remain  impossible 
until  we  do  get  some  actual  knowledge  of  psychology,  until 
' '  we  ascertain  with  some  completeness  how  the  faculties  un- 
fold." That  does  not  now  exist;  hence -his  choice  of  ma- 
terials for  the  curriculum  must  be  made.without  such  help, 
and,  as  is  certain  to  be  the  case,  he  really  falls  back  upon 
traditional  conceptions  much  more  completely  than  he  is 
aware. 

The  Rise  of  the  Sciences. — There  is  no  more  wonderful 
story  in  human  history  than  that  which  tells  the  tale  of  the 
rise  of  science.  We  have  already  seen  something  of  this, 
but  the  whole  story  is  far  too  long  to  be  further  touched 
upon  here.  -  But  we  must  note  a  few  elements  in  that  other 
aspect  of  the  same  story — how  the  sciences  made  their  way 
into  the  schools.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  old  traditional  materials  still  remained  in  control 
of  the  schools,  despite  the  many  reform  movements  that  had 
taken  place,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  scattering  experi- 
ments which  were  generally  regarded  with  some  suspicion. 
But  during  the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century  a  great 
change  was  forced  upon  the  schools.  New  subjects  in  the 


350  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

sciences  were  rapidly  developing,  and  these  were  demanding 
and  securing  admittance.  New  materials  were  rolling  in 
upon  the  world  from  the  simple  laboratories  of  obscure 
workers  in  the  fields  of  physics,  chemistry,  geology,  botany, 
and  zoology;  from  the  more  striking  work  of  men  like 
Franklin  and  Faraday  in  electricity,  Watt  and  Stephenson 
in  the  control  of  steam,  Hugh  Miller  in  the  observation  of 
the  structure  of  the  earth,  Linnseus,  Cuvier,  Buffon,  La- 
marck and  Darwin  in  plant  and  animal  life,  and  from  many 
other  sources, — a  brilliant  story  of  remarkable  achieve- 
ments. 

But  these  materials  were  not  in  the  schools.  The  older 
materials  of  language  and  grammar  looked  with  scorn  upon 
these  new,  chaotic,  unorganized  masses  of  information.  A 
real  campaign  would  be  needed  to  break  through  those  old 
bulwarks  of  tradition  and  carry  these  new  materials  into 
the  schools,  and  thus  into  the  life  of  the  people.  To  be  sure, 
these  scientific  materials  had  been  used  in  some  measure  in 
common  life  and  practical  ways,  but  this  did  not  carry  with 
it  recognition  of  their  value  for  educational  purposes.  The 
full  meaning  of  science  for  the  life  of  the  world  would  not 
be  realized  until  all  the  common  life  was  brought  into  benef- 
icent contact  with  its  promised  values ;  and  this  could  only 
be  accomplished  by  making  these  materials  an  integral  and 
fully  accepted  part  of  the  curriculum  of  the  schools.  The 
brunt  of  this  battle  for  the  recognition  of  the  sciences  was 
borne  by  two  Englishmen,  Spencer  and  Huxley.  We  must 
glance  briefly  at  the  work  of  each. 

The  Work  of  Spencer.— Herbert  Spencer  (1820-1903) 
was  the  first  famous  advocate  of  the  sciences  in  their  modern 
form  as  educational  materials.  His  essay  "What  Knowl- 
edge Is  of  Most  Worth?"  may  be  said  to  have  ushered  in 
the  period  of  agitation  for  a  place  for  the  sciences  in  the 
schools.  In  this  discussion  Spencer  vigorously  attacks  the 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  351 

traditional  curriculum,  almost  bitterly  condemns  the  con- 
ventional academic  subjects,  and  urges  upon  all  educational 
agencies  the  claims  of  the  sciences  to  be  that  knowledge  of 
most  worth.  He  insists  that  the  sciences  are  valuable  for 
the  practical  guidance  of  life  and  for  the  discipline  of  the 
mind.  Spencer  was  acquainted  at  second  hand  with  the 
work  of  Pestalozzi,  and  he  follows  the  lead  of  that  reformer 
in  some  measure.  He  advocates  a  rational  system  of  physi- 
cal education  and  a  natural  system  of  moral  education,  in 
which  the  punishment  should  fit  the  crime;  and  he  would 
displace  the  old  practices  of  arbitrary  punishments  in  the 
school-room  by  substituting  the  Pestalozzian  doctrines  of 
interest  and  activity. 

Spencer  classifies  educations,  according  to  their  worth  for 
life,  into  five  main  groups,  as  follows:  "That  education 
which  prepares  for  direct  self-preservation ;  that  which  pre- 
pares for  indirect  self-preservation ;  that  which  prepares  for 
parenthood ;  that  which  prepares  for  citizenship ;  and  that 
which  prepares  for  the  miscellaneous  refinements  of  life." 
In  the  defense  of  these  materials  Spencer  argues  with  fun- 
damental and  convincing  conviction.  His  arguments  are, 
for  the  most  part,  unanswerable.  But  there  were  two  as- 
pects of  the  situation  that  he  did  not  fully  perceive.  First, 
arguments  do  not  make  much  headway  against  the  estab- 
lished routines  of  social  life  or  conventional  institutional- 
isms.  The  traditional  subjects  were  in,  and  possession  is 
more  than  nine  points  in  an  argument.  The  traditional 
school-men  seemed  rather  to  enjoy  the  eloquence  of  the  ad- 
vocates of  science;  but  they  did  not  propose  to  give  up 
any  of  their  ancient  privileges.  But  the  second  of  these 
elements  was  perhaps  more  decisive.  Spencer  was  himself, 
in  very  large  measure,  a  traditionalist,  except  that  he 
wanted  a  different,  and  doubtless  more  valuable  sort  of 
material  to  become  the  central  factor  of  the  tradition.  This 


352  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

is  seen  in  the  fact  that  he  was  willing,  as  we  have  already 
noted,  to  accept  "guiding  principles,"  upon  which  an  "em- 
pirical approximation  toward  a  perfect  scheme"  of  educa- 
tion could  be  built,  in  place  of  psychology.  The  latter 
was  then  non-existent.  But  this  traditionalism  of  his  point 
of  view  is  more  particularly  seen  in  the  almost  vindictive 
hopefulness  with  which  he  closes  his  essay  on  ' '  Which 
Knowledge  Is  of  Most  Worth  ? ' '  After  pointing  out,  truth- 
fully enough,  that  the  sciences  and  the  scientists  of  his 
time  had  been  harshly  and  unfairly  treated,  he  expresses 
the  hope  that  a  better  day  will  come ;  and  he  closes  by  say- 
ing: 

Paraphrasing  an  Eastern  fable,  we  may  say  that  in  the  family 
of  knowledges,  Science  is  the  household  drudge,  who,  in  obscurity, 
hides  unrecognized  perfections.  To  her  has  been  committed  all 
the  work;  by  her  skill,  intelligence,  and  devotion  have  all  the 
conveniences  and  gratifications  been  obtained;  and  while  cease- 
lessly occupied  ministering  to  the  rest,  she  has  been  kept  in  the 
background,  that  her  haughty  sisters  might  flaunt  their  fripperies 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The  parallel  holds  yet  further.  For 
we  are  fast  coming  to  the  denouement,  when  the  positions  will  be 
changed;  and  while  these  haughty  sisters  sink  into  merited  neg- 
lect, Science,  proclaimed  as  highest  alike  in  worth  and  beauty, 
will  reign  supreme. 

This  doctrine  was,  of  course,  a  little  more  than  the  tradi- 
tional school-men  or  the  general  public  cared  to  accept. 

The  Work  of  Huxley.— Thomas  H.  Huxley  (1825-1895) 
was  the  second,  and  the  greater,  of  the  two  advocates  of  the 
sciences  as  educational  material.  His  arguments  repeat  all 
those  of  the  scientists  from  Bacon  to  Spencer.  He  insists 
that  education  must  have  a  practical  purpose — it  must  en- 
able men  to  live.  It  must  have  a  basis  in  reality,  rather  than 
in  the  verbalisms  of  the  books,  thus  echoing  the  sense- 
realists  of  the  seventeenth  century.  And  he  declares  that 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  353 

if  practical  usefulness  and  reality  are  made  the  basis  of 
choice  of  materials,  the  sciences  will  head  the  list  of  sub- 
jects in  the  curriculum.  He  asks  "Is  it  too  much  to  say 
that  an  education  which  should  embrace  these  subjects  [t.  e. 
the  sciences]  would  be  a  real,  though  an  incomplete,  edu- 
cation ;  while  an  education  which  omits  them  is  really  not 
an  education  at  all,  but  a  more  or  less  useful  course  of  in- 
tellectual gymnastics?"  This  question  is,  of  course,  di- 
rected against  the  prevailing  classicism  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century  in  England.  Huxley's  comparison  of  the 
verbalisms  of  this  linguistic  education  with  a  course  made 
out  on  possibly  similar  lines  in  the  sciences  is  quite  convinc- 
ing in  a  negative  way. 

On  the  positive  side  Huxley  writes  with  an  eloquence  that 
is  masterful.  His  definition  of  a  liberal  education,  set  forth 
in  his  essay  "A  Liberal  Education  and  Where  to  Find  It," 
should  be  known  by  every  teacher.  As  a  statement  of  an 
educational  ideal  it  has  lasting  significance.  Of  course,  like 
many  another  educational  ideal,  his  statement  is  difficult  to 
translate  into  the  method  of  educational  practice.  Hux- 
ley, indeed,  shows  little  appreciation  of  the  inclusive  educa- 
tional problem.  He  would  have  every  one  acquainted  with 
these  wonderful  results  of  the  progress  of  the  sciences,  for 
there  is  no  other  knowledge  that  has  such  intimate  and  uni- 
versal relationship  to  all  the  various  activities  and  concerns 
of  living.  But  on  the  whole  he  would  merely  have  them 
acquainted, — a  sort  of  "Be  ye  acquainted !"  proposal.  His 
psychology  is  of  the  same  general  order  with  that  of  the 
sense-realists  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He  seems  to  as- 
sume that  the  whole  problem  in  education  is  that  of  selecting 
the  proper  sort  of  educational  material.  His  contributions 
to  educational  discussion  are  eloquent  and  valuable,  but 
they  do  not  help  much  in  the  analysis  and  solution  of  the 
problem. 


354  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

The  Defense  of  Science. — The  work  of  the  great  scien- 
tists in  the  furtherance  of  human  knowledge  can  scarcely 
be  overestimated.  But  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  the 
main  the  work  of  modern  science  goes  on  in  ignorance  of 
the  value  of  psychology.  Many  of  the  positions  of  the  sci- 
entists are  therefore  impossible.  Sometimes  efforts  have 
been  made  to  ridicule  psychology  out  of  court,  or  out  of  use 
as  a  tool  of  educational  procedure,  just  as  certain  naive 
healing  cults  have  attempted  to  ridicule  physiology  out  of 
existence,  or  out  of  use  as  a  tool  of  hygiene.  The  tragedy 
lies  in  the  fact  that  in  so  large  a  measure  the  various  de- 
partments of  science  are  isolated  from  each  other  in  their 
own  laboratories,  technics,  and  routines.  Modern  science 
has  stood  for  investigation,  for  scientific  method,  for  the 
laboratory  method,  and  the  like,  and  also  for  the  building 
up  of  great  systems  of  knowledge ;  and  at  times  modern  sci- 
ence has  stood  for  the  search  for  truth  (what  the  Germans 
call  Wissenschaft)  in  every  phase  of  the  word.  But  that 
has  been  only  when  rare  individuals  have  been  pleading  the 
cause  of  science  as  the  search  for  truth,  and  when  they  have 
been  leading  in  its  defense.  Thus  Huxley  performed  val- 
iant service  in  the  defense  of  science  in  the  days  when  the 
Darwinian  theory  was  on  trial.  The  cause  of  science  as  the 
endless  search  for  truth  was  bravely  defended  by  many 
able  men  in  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  frontiers  of 
science  were  in  the  biological  fields,  just  as  in  earlier  ages 
other  strong  men  had  fought  for  the  same  right  to  search 
in  the  fields  of  astronomy  or  physics. 

But  the  frontiers  of  science  have  now  passed  over  into 
the  fields  of  the  social  sciences — economics,  politics,  and  edu- 
cation. And  in  rather  deplorable  measure  the  workers  in 
the  older  and  more  established  fields  of  the  sciences  have 
lost  interest  in  the  problem  of  science,  having  become  over- 
busy  with  their  work  in  the  fairly  free  fields  of  investiga- 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  355 

tion.  Hence  the  task  of  defending  the  frontiers  of  science 
has  been  largely  left  to  the  workers  in  the  fields  of  the  social 
sciences  themselves,  to  whom,  however,  the  right  to  call 
themselves  scientists  is  rather  grudgingly  given.  This  de- 
fense of  science  is,  of  course,  the  greatest  problem  of  the 
modern  world.  It  is  much  more  important,  indeed,  than 
the  question  as  to  whether  certain  scientific  materials  shall 
be  included  in  the  school  curriculum.  And  this  task  of 
defending  science  is  many-sided.  It  involves  the  fight,  as 
of  old,  against  the  still  unconquered  forces  of  ignorance  and 
prejudice  and  old  falsehood.  It  must  contend  with  the 
false  conceptions  engendered  in  many  by  the  overzealous 
efforts  on  the  part  of  young  and  enthusiastic  men  to  destroy 
all  human  ideals  in  the  process  of  destroying  old  falsehoods. 
And  it  must  fight  the  complacencies  and  self-satisfactions 
of  the  established  sciences, — those  which  have  developed 
vested  interests  in  the  intellectual  field,  which  have  adapted 
their  tasks  to  certain  fixed  boundaries,  and  which,  through 
ignorance  of  the  history  of  science  and  of  psychology,  have 
developed  a  scientific  method  which  is  fully  settled  and  un- 
questionable. 

Scientific  Method  in  Education. — When  reference  is 
made  to  scientific  method,  it  is  generally  assumed  that  just 
one  such  method  is  possible.  That  is,  of  course,  a  very  in- 
adequate conception,  at  least  in  the  field  of  educational 
discussion.  The  term  "scientific  method"  is  usually  em- 
ployed to  denote  the  method  used  by  an  advanced  investi- 
gator on  the  more  or  less  remote  frontiers  of  science, — a 
man  who  is  actually  making  new  and  fresh  contributions  to 
human  knowledge. 

But  from  the  standpoint  of  educational  theory  there  are 
at  least  three  distinct  scientific  methods,  each  with  its  own 
objective,  its  own  technic,  and  its  own  criteria  of  success, 
and  each  based  on  distinctive  psychological  conditions. 


356  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Failure  to  distinguish  these  three  types  is  responsible  for 
much  of  the  futility  of  contemporary  educational  discussion, 
especially  by  representatives  of  the  scientific  point  of  view ; 
and  this  failure  tends  to  turn  all  the  advocates  of  the  sci- 
ences into  materialists  of  the  seventeenth  century  type.  Let 
us  note  these  three  types  of  method. 

First,  there  is,  of  course,  the  ordinary  scientific  method, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  the  method  of  the  advance  worker 
in  his  actual  search  for  new  truth,  the  original  investigator 
who  is  dealing  with  materials  which  are  new  to  himself  and 
to  the  world.  The  aim,  the  technic,  and  the  criteria  of  suc- 
cess are  all  distinctive,  and  they  are  determined  by  the  ac- 
tual nature  of  the  task. 

Second,  there  is  the  scientific  method  appropriate  to  the 
younger  student,  who  is  going  over  materials  which  are  new 
and  strange  to  himself,  but  which  have  been  formulated  in 
more  or  less  logical  completeness  by  the  investigators  who 
have  gone  before.  Here,  it  must  be  obvious,  a  new  sort  of 
aim  enters.  There  are  new  criteria  of  success  and  failure, 
and  there  must  be  a  very  different  technic  of  accomplish- 
ment. The  first  type  of  method,  sketched  above,  is  obvi- 
ously out  of  place  here ;  but  the  lack  of  any  other  adequate 
sort  induces  the  student  to  attempt  to  cover  in  a  few  hours 
what  may  have  been  the  task  of  many  lifetimes  of  earlier 
pioneers  on  the  frontiers  of  science.  Not  infrequently  mere 
learning,  or  mere  memorizing,  takes  the  place  of  real  scien- 
tific method;  and  the  result  is,  not  unreasonably,  that  sci- 
ence ceases  to  be  a  worthy  or  engaging  pursuit. 

The  third  type  of  scientific  method  is  that  needed  by  the 
teacher,  i.e.,  one  who  is  going  over  old  materials  for  the 
second,  tenth,  or  twentieth  time.  Here,  again,  all  the  aims 
are  different,  the  technic  is  different,  and  the  criteria  of 
success  and  failure  are  different.  The  scientific  world  is 
a  constructed  world,  a  thought-out  world,  not  either  a 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  357 

memorized  or  an  obvious  world.  But  it  has  taken  centuries 
to  think  out  and  construct  this  world  of  scientific  achieve- 
ment. No  child  can  take  the  time  to  rethink  the  world  in 
any  such  fashion.  On  the  other  hand,  memorizing  books  is 
the  death  of  science.  How  shall  the  teacher  make  sure  that 
the  child  thinks  his  way  through  the  accomplishments  of 
the  thousand  years  of  science  in  the  few  years  of  educational 
experience?  That  question  sets  the  task  of  the  third  type 
of  scientific  method. 

But  in  large  measure  these  three  types  of  actual  mental 
activity  are  naively  confused  in  the  discussion  of  scientific 
method  in  education,  with  the  result  that  all  the  issues  in 
education  are  confused.  Usually  this  means  that  practical 
men  fall  back  upon  some  sort  of  material  as  the  solution  of 
their  troubles.  Of  course  any  successful  scientist  must  be 
a  successful  practitioner  of  the  first  type  of  method,  though, 
unless  he  is  also  something  of  a  psychologist,  he  is  likely 
to  be  but  a  poor  expositor  of  that  method  in  argument. 
Most  students  fail  to  develop  the  second  type  without  actual 
aid  of  some  sort,  and  that  help  is  not  always  available.  And 
while  it  is  true  that  no  amount  of  study  of  method  can 
transform  a  dolt  into  a  genius,  it  is  also  true  that  effective- 
ness of  skill  in  working  in  the  field  of  education  can  be 
enlarged  by  definite  attention  to  these  three  forms  of  sci- 
entific method.  Even  the  most  brilliant  natural-born 
teacher  may  be  helped  by  some  real  study  in  this  field. 

Freedom  through  Science. — One  final  item  should  be 
noted.  It  is  the  claim  of  the  scientist  that  human  freedom 
is  to  be  accomplished  by  the  rigorous  application  of  the  sci- 
ences to  human  living.  There  is  large  hope  in  this.  But  if 
this  hope  is  to  be  realized,  at  least  two  aspects  of  the  prob- 
lem must  receive  conscious,  explicit  recognition.  The  first 
is  this:  the  term  "science"  must  be  freed  in  its  own  right 
from  any  narrow  and  petty  application  to  any  restricted 


358  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

subject-matter.  Science  must  be  recognized  as  a  possible 
mode  of  approach  in  every  aspect  of  human  living,  social  as 
well  as  physical.  And  that  means  that  the  identification  of 
scientific  method  with  laboratory  method  is  unwarranted. 
The  essentials  of  scientific  method  seem  to  be,  first,  hypo- 
thetical thinking  as  opposed  to  old  dogmatic  thinking,  and 
second,  the  testing  of  hypotheses,  instead  of  accepting  them 
on  the  basis  of  their  reasonableness.  And  that  testing  may 
come  in  many  ways. 

The  second  aspect  of  the  problem  of  freedom  through  sci- 
ence is  this:  that  science  must  not  be  identified  with  accu- 
mulated knowledge,  i.e.,  with  certain  accepted  materials. 
There  is  a  scholasticism  in  modern  science  not  less  danger- 
ous than  the  scholasticism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  grows  out 
of  the  same  soil ;  humanity  clings  to  its  old  habits  quite  as 
tenaciously  now  as  ever  in  the  past.  And  the  accomplish- 
ments of  the  scientist  in  his  laboratory  become  quite  as  dear 
to  his  heart  as  the  accomplishments  of  the  scholastic  in  his 
closet.  The  test  of  the  scientist  is  his  love  of  the  search, 
not  his  list  of  accomplished  results. 

Scientific  procedure  has  everything  to  give  to  the  schools 
of  a  democracy;  but  when  the  sciences  offer  the  schools 
merely  the  accomplished,  material  results  of  old  research, 
it  is  as  if  the  schools  should  be  given  not  the  bread  of  life 
they  need,  but  the  cold  stones  of  conventional  information 
that  they  cannot  understand,  assimilate,  or  appreciate. 
Science  needs  to  make  lasting  compact  with  psychology,  in 
order  that  the  vital  spirit  of  the  search  for  truth  may  be- 
come an  integral  part  of  the  program  of  the  schools. 

The  very  existence  of  a  democracy  seems  to  depend  on 
such  a  development.  This,  finally,  may  be  seen  from  an- 
other point  of  view.  Democracy  needs  discipline  quite  as 
much  as  does  any  other  order  of  society ;  but  it  must  be  the 
discipline  of  a  free  intelligence,  not  of  a  conventional  social 


SCIENCE  IN  EDUCATION  359 

status.  How  shall  discipline  and  free  intelligence  be  devel- 
oped in  the  same  individual  ?  Ever  since  the  days  of  Locke 
at  least,  the  world  has  rightly  insisted  that  there  can  be 
no  real  education  without  such  an  actual  discipline  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind  as  shall  make  the  mind  a  fit  instrument 
for  the  uses  of  life.  It  was  the  boast  of  the  older  linguistic 
and  mathematical  studies  that  they  alone  were  sufficiently 
definite  in  form  to  secure  this  disciplining  of  the  mind,  for 
discipline  was  regarded  wholly  as  a  matter  of  form.  This 
older  conception  seemed  to  consider  discipline  as  a  sort  of 
holding  the  unstable  mind  in  a  fixed  form  until  its  insta- 
bility had  given  place  to  a  consistent  and  stable  character. 
"We  learn  to  think  by  reading  the  perfectly  expressed 
thoughts  of  the  world's  great  thinkers,  until  our  minds  are 
definitely  molded  on  the  lines  of  their  perfection  of  form. ' ' 
From  this  point  of  view  the  sciences  have  little  value  as  edu- 
cative materials,  for  the  very  concept  of  science  indicates 
something  that  is  forever  mobile. 

But  this  conception  of  discipline  seems  too  artificial,  too 
external,  too  unreal.  Psychologically,  it  is  no  longer  ten- 
able. We  do  not  learn  to  think  in  such  fashion.  Such  ex- 
ternal discipline  does  not  meet  the  needs  of  a  scientific  age, 
and  it  utterly  fails  to  grasp  the  significance  of  discipline  in 
a  democracy.  Science  demands  free  intelligence;  democ- 
racy demands  free  personality;  and  such  a  conception  of 
discipline  ignores  the  psychology  of  both  free  intelligence 
and  free  personality.  On  the  other  hand,  the  scientists  have 
never  faced  the  question  of  basing  discipline  on  less  formal 
and  more  vital  grounds,  grounds  more  in  consonance  with 
the  spirit  of  science.  Yet  the  real  answer  to  the  problem 
lies  in  the  field  of  science.  Discipline  of  the  democratic  sort 
does  not  come  from  externally  imposed  tasks  or  from  imi- 
tation ;  all  discipline  is,  in  the  end,  seZ/-discipline.  All  true 
discipline  is  of  the  nature  of  that  training  which  comes  to 


360  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  scientist  who  has  put  himself  under  control  for  the 
sake  of  some  worthy  goal  which  he  himself  has  apprehended. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  educational  process  becomes 
wholly  an  inner  process,  not  subjective  in  the  invidious 
sense  of  that  word,  but  "within  experience,"  all  external 
aims  and  all  merely  externally  presented  materials  being 
eliminated.  The  educational  process  becomes  one  of  con- 
tinuous growth  of  experience,  continuous  interaction  of 
mind  with  fact,  continuous  reconstruction  of  experience, 
continuous  development  of  control,  and  continuous  disci- 
pline. 

But  owing  to  the  dominance  of  materials,  this  discipline 
into  freedom  does  not  usually  take  place.  The  sciences  have 
not  attracted  students  as  they  should  have  done,  because  a 
certain  scientific  materialism  (in  the  educational  sense) 
stands  in  the  way  of  both  discipline  and  freedom. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION 

THE  third  stream  of  influence  flowing  from  the  work  of 
the  naturalists  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  predominantly 
social.  Not  infrequently  the  educational  ideal  has  become 
consciously  social,  for  example,  in  the  doctrines  of  Mon- 
taigne; and  always,  back  of  the  most  intellectual  ideal, 
some  more  or  less  shadowy  form  of  a  social  world  can  be 
seen,  as,  for  example,  in  the  "Heavenly  Fatherland,"  the 
' '  Patria, ' '  of  Thomas  Aquinas.  Scholasticism,  even  though 
working  at  intellectual  tasks,  felt  itself  furthering  the  in- 
terests of  a  social  sphere,  even  though  in  another  world. 
Classical  humanism,  tied  up  in  the  grammar  schools  and 
newer  colleges  of  the  early  modern  period,  was  working  for 
the  development  of  a  real  humanity.  And  the  rising  in- 
terest in  elementary  education  in  the  last  two  centuries  has 
grown  out  of,  and  back  into,  the  modern  world  of  com- 
merce, industry,  and  democratic  realization.1  Of  course  all 
edmcation  everywhere,  from  the  primitive  folkway  life  down 
to  the  present,  has  been  determined  by  some  sort  of  a  social 
ideal,  unless,  perhaps,  some  element  of  lingering  tradition 
remains  to  make  the  system  no  longer  intelligible  to  the  new 
age.  It  must  be  true  that  all  education  is  preparation  for 
some  sort  of  living  in  some  sort  of  a  social  world. 

The  Democratic  Ideal  in  Education. — But  never  before 
in  history  has  the  task  of  education  been  so  seriously  con- 
sidered as  in  the  past  century  under  the  more  complete 
realization  of  the  meaning  of  all  the  revolutionary  move- 

iDewey  and  Tufts,  "Ethics,"  p.  165. 

361 


362  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

merits  of  the  modern  world.  Eeligious  revolution,  from  the 
Reformation  down  to  the  present,  shows  clearly  that  human 
life  is  moving  on  toward  an  ideal  of  freedom  from  the  arbi- 
trary dogmas  and  authorities  of  the  past.  Political  revo- 
lution brings  home  to  men  continuously  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  halting-place  short  of  the  life  of  reason.  Industrial 
changes  are  demonstrating  that  old  distinctions  between  the 
educated  and  uneducated  classes  can  no  longer  be  main- 
tained along  economic  lines.  And  the  intellectual  revolu- 
tion is  simply  gathering  up,  organizing,  generalizing,  and 
applying  these  great  realizations  to  the  ever-widening 
spheres  of  living.  Education  must  turn  them  all  to  the 
uses  of  living  and  the  preparation  for  more  intelligent  liv- 
ing. The  task  of  education  becomes  inclusive.  The  ideal 
of  education  under  these  conditions  of  freed  emotion,  intel- 
ligence, and  action  is  really  human  in  a  sense  never  dreamed 
by  the  Humanists.  Economically,  men  must  be  free  to 
work,  to  enjoy,  and  to  share  the  values  and  meanings  of  life 
in  a  human  way.  Very  well ;  let  education  take  account  of 
this  aspect  of  the  task.  Politically,  men  must  be  free  to 
deliberate,  to  know,  to  decide,  to  choose,  and  thus  to  help 
determine  their  own  destinies  and  the  destinies  of  one  an- 
other in  a  human  way.  Very  well;  let  education  take  ac- 
count of  this  fact.  Religiously,  men  must  be  free  to  wor- 
ship or  to  refuse  to  worship,  to  "reverence  their  conscience 
as  their  king"  in  a  human  sort  of  way.  Very  well ;  let  edu- 
cation understand  this  fact.  And  intelligence  must  become 
big  enough  to  comprehend  these  freedoms  which  the  soul 
of  the  race  is  determined  upon.  The  ideal  of  education  in 
a  democracy  must  be  inclusive  enough  to  maintain  an  actual 
aim  of  freedom,  while  at  the  same  time  making  use  of  all 
the  materials  of  the  past  and  all  the  achievements  of  the 
present  to  realize  and  criticize  and  make  effective  that  aim 
of  freedom. 


DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION      363 

The  Machinery  of  the  Democratic  Ideal. — Older  ideals 
of  education  found  their  machinery  in  the  traditional  in- 
stitutions of  the  community,  especially  the  church.  In 
large  measure,  schools  have  been  handmaidens  of  the  re- 
ligious hopes  of  the  race.  To  be  sure,  the  governmental  in- 
stitutions have  usually  promoted  educational  enterprises  of 
a  more  or  less  limited  sort.  But  any  sort  of  education  less 
than  a  completely  democratic  type  must  find  much  of  its 
support  in  special  classes  or  groups.  But  with  the  coming 
of  the  free  period  in  political  life,  and  with  the  demand  for 
the  common  education  of  the  community,  education  has  be- 
come more  and  more  the  necessity  of  all  persons ;  and  there- 
fore it  has  become  the  task  and  responsibility  of  all  persons, 
working  through  the  state.  The  modern  democratic  pro- 
gram is  a  program  of  state  promotion  of  public  education. 
The  state  is  the  organized  instrument  for  collective  action, 
and  education  is  the  most  thoroughgoing  example  of  collec- 
tive action.  The  state  is  therefore  its  proper  instrument. 
Pestalozzi  saw  this.  Headway  in  handling  the  destinies  of 
the  poor  and  ignorant  depends  upon  making  that  problem 
a  public  responsibility.  Horace  Mann  saw  it,  and  decided 
that  a  school-house  must  be  built  within  the  reach  of  every 
boy  and  girl,  without  regard  to  economic  considerations. 
Increasingly  the  modern  world  has  seen  it,  and  laws  have 
been  passed  making  it  compulsory  for  every  child,  within 
certain  age-limits,  to  attend  some  sort  of  school.  The  task 
that  proves  too  great  for  individual  initiative  or  for  private 
philanthropy  becomes  surprisingly  simple  when  made  a  dis- 
tinctive part  of  the  public  will  through  governmental  action. 
The  perpetuity  of  the  state,  the  stability  of  institutions,  the 
conduct  of  affairs — all  depend  upon  intelligence,  or  so  it  is 
assumed,  and  in  this  sense  "the  public  school  is  the  hope 
of  the  country."  Life,  itself,  becomes  the  criterion  of 
progress  in  educational  matters.  In  a  sense  this  is  a  return 


364  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

upon  the  implicit  ideal  of  the  primitive  folkways.  But  of 
course  it  is  much  more  sophisticated,  much  more  elaborate 
and  intelligent.  Also  not  infrequently  the  results  achieved 
are  accepted  by  the  public  with  quite  the  same  complacency 
as  was  characteristic  of  the  primitive  folkways.  Democ- 
racy has  not  yet  learned  how  to  build  educational  institu- 
tions with  the  patient  insight  and  the  sympathetic  intelli- 
gence capable  of  interpreting  to  the  growing  child  the  mo- 
tives of  freedom  that  have  been  the  most  earnest  desire  of 
the  modern  age,  so  that  those  motives  become  his  own.  The 
wish  to  be  democratic  is  with  us  more  or  less ;  the  ideals  of 
democracy  become  clearer  from  decade  to  decade;  but  the 
actual  will-to-be-democratic  is  not  yet  present,  and  especially 
the  actual  method  of  democracy  in  education,  that  is,  of 
democracy  in  the  experience  of  children,  is  not  yet  clear. 
Accordingly,  we  have  only  partially  realized  our  democratic 
professions.  Present  world-conflicts  press  home  upon  us  the 
larger  nature  of  the  task.  But  certainly,  if  the  world  is  to 
be  "made  safe  for  democracy,"  the  work  must  begin  in  the 
schools.  However,  there  is  as  yet  little  agreement  as  to  just 
what  a  completely  democratic  or  social  program  in  education 
would  include.  A  "school-house  within  reach  of  every 
child"  has  not  solved  the  problem;  compulsory  attendance 
has  not  been  able  to  overcome  the  difficulty.  What  shall  be 
the  nature  of  our  program  ?  What  shall  be  the  aim  ?  We 
must  note  the  characteristics  of  a  number  of  answers  that 
have  been  proposed  for  meeting  this  question. 

Education  as  Universal  Intelligence. — The  social  em- 
phasis upon  education  has  become  more  pronounced  in  the 
century  since,  and  following  upon,  the  work  of  Pestalom 
and  others  who  looked  at  education  from  his  point  of  view. 
In  a  fashion  education  has  become  quite  aware  of  its  social 
significance.  For  example,  an  American  statesman,  Mr. 
Garfield,  suggested,  "We  must  offset  the  dangers  of  univer- 


DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION      365 

sal  suffrage  by  means  of  universal  education. ' '  Out  of  this 
conception,  which  is  based  partly  on  hope  and  partly  on 
fear,  there  has  arisen  the  ideal  that  education  should  mean, 
primarily,  universal  dissemination  of  knowledge,  since 
knowledge  is  both  safeguard  of  past  accomplishment  and 
guarantor  of  future  progress.  This  is  further  emphasized 
by  the  fact  that  there  is  a  growing  wealth  of  vital  and  useful 
knowledge  in  the  world,  though  not  all  the  world  realizes  this 
fact  and  hence  we  have  stagnation  or  slight  progress,  where 
we  should  be  having  constant  progress.  Most  people  know 
far  less  than  they  are  able  to  know,  and  just  to  that  extent 
human  progress  is  delayed  or  defeated.  Education  thus 
becomes  a  public  function;  it  should  be  controlled  by  the 
state,  in  order  that  every  individual  may  fully  share  in  it 
and  in  order  that  the  knowledge  so  disseminated  may  be 
public  knowledge  and  not  private,  interested  knowledge. 
In  his  "Dynamic  Sociology"  Ward  defines  this  educational 
ideal  and  describes  the  system  necessary  to  its  realization  as 
"a  system  for  extending  to  all  members  of  society  such  of 
the  extant  knowledge  of  the  world  as  may  be  deemed  most 
important." 

It  were  well  for  the  student  to  realize  that  Ward's  con- 
ception contains  some  essentially  Platonic  elements.  It 
urges  the  control  of  all  information  by  the  state,  and  the 
dissemination  of  such  parts  of  it  as  may  be  deemed  to  be 
most  important.  These  are  almost  the  identical  proposals 
of  Plato.  It  should  also  be  noted  that  this  is  wholly  an 
informational  conception  of  education,  and  as  such  it  is 
not  far  removed  from  the  doctrines  of  Montaigne.  That  is 
to  say,  it  does  not  rise  to  the  level  of  recognition  of  the 
psychological  factors  involved  in  educative  processes,  but 
simply  assumes  that  information  may  be  taken  on  by  any 
one.  It  illustrates  how  lacking  much  sociological  theoriz- 
ing has  been  in  psychological  insight.  Up  to  within  the  last 


366  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

decade  there  has  existed  no  social  psychology  able  to  give  so- 
ciological theory  its  proper  tool  of  psychological  analysis. 
The  effort  to  state  social  necessities  or  social  theories  in 
terms  of  traditional,  non-social  psychologies  has  proved  ab- 
solutely futile.  The  greatest  need  of  the  present,  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  sociological  theory  of  education,  is  the  de- 
velopment of  a  thoroughly  effective  social  psychology. 
Until  that  appears,  sociological  theorizing  is  likely  to  prove 
pedantic  and  scholastic,  especially  as  concerns  educational 
processes. 

Education  as  the  Development  of  a  Social  Mind. — 
Within  the  last  two  decades  there  has  been  some  develop- 
ment of  such  a  social  psychology  in  a  general  and  gross 
sort  of  way.  One  result  of  this  development  has  been  the 
working  out  of  the  theory  that  there  exists  what  may  prop- 
erly be  called  a  social  mind,  which  is  something  other  than 
the  sum  of  individual  minds,  which  is  prior,  indeed,  to  the 
existence  of  individual  minds.  This  assertion,  of  course,  ia 
challenged  on  every  hand.  But  there  seems  good  ground 
for  such  a  theory.  Professor  Cooley  has  formulated  the 
doctrine  in  this  way:  "Every  thought  that  we  have  is 
linked  with  the  thought  of  our  ancestors  and  associates, 
and  through  them  with  society  at  large.  [This]  is  the  only 
view  consistent  with  the  general  standpoint  of  modern  sci- 
ence, which  admits  nothing  isolated  in  nature. ' ' 1  Such  a 
statement  brings  us  a  hint  from  the  folkway  world,  where 
what  he  describes  was  certainly  true,  and  it  helps  us  to  see 
how  deeply  and  unconsciously  the  great  cultures  and  insti- 
tutionalisms  of  the  past  underlie  all  our  living  and  think- 
ing. But  this  statement  also  brings  us  a  curious  denial  of 
one  of  the  original  proposals  of  Rousseau.  In  his  earlier 
writings,  and,  indeed,  all  the  way  through  his  work,  Rous- 
seau harps  upon  the  failure  of  society,  and  especially  upon 

1  Cooley,  "Social  Organizations,  pp.  3-4. 


DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION      367 

the  evils  of  traditions  and  institutions.  He  would  escape 
from  all  this  past  accumulation  of  evils  and  find  freedom 
and  the  chance  for  a  fresh  start  in  a  life  developed  apart 
from  the  world  and  from  all  contact  with  ancestors  and 
conventional  associates.  He  assumes  that  society  began  in 
some  such  atomistic  way,  i.e.,  by  the  coming  together  of 
hitherto  independent  individuals  who  agree  to  live  together 
in  a  social  group. 

Rousseau's  lack  of  psychological  insight  appears  plainly 
here.  Psychology  is  now  showing  us  that  individual  ex- 
perience is  really  deeply  rooted  in  the  accumulated  experi- 
ence of  the  race.  Individual  habit  grows  up  under  the 
tutelage  of  social  habit ;  the  folkways  are  endlessly  present 
and  effective  even  to-day.  "  Education  comes  not  from  the 
books ;  it  is  borne  on  the  currents  of  the  folkways. ' '  The 
great  social  mind  of  all  the  past  with  all  its  traditions, 
attitudes,  prejudices,  hatreds,  tolerances,  and  faiths,  im- 
poses itself  upon  us.  Rousseau  tried  to  find  a  way  of  escape 
from  this;  he  would  run  away  from  it  all  to  the  freedom 
of  nature.  But  the  fate  of  "Emile"  shows  how  impossible 
such  an  escape  is.  The  only  possible  escape  from  it  is  in 
facing  it,  tearing  it  to  pieces,  analyzing  it,  grappling  with 
its  evils,  accepting  and  enriching  its  goods,  and  using  it  in 
the  making  of  a  world  in  which  our  chastened  energies  and 
purposes  can  dwell.  Certainly  there  can  be  no  more  la- 
mentable failure  than  in  running  away,  unless  it  be  found  in 
the  credulous  acceptance  of  all  the  content  of  this  social 
mind,  for  that  would  be  the  full  surrender  to  all  the  ele- 
ments of  custom,  the  denial  of  intelligence,  and  a  return  to 
the  primitive  folkways. 

Education  as  Social  Control. — Another  of  these  socio- 
logical ideals  of  education  defines  the  function  of  education 
as  the  "chief  means  of  social  control."  This  is  a  great  ad- 
vance upon  some  old  conceptions  of  social  control — control 


368  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

by  the  authority  of  some  arbitrary  or  supernatural  power 
expressed  through  king,  soldier,  policeman,  or  priest. 
Knowledge  is  to  take  the  place  of  all  these,  except,  of  course, 
in  the  case  of  certain  abnormal  types  who  must  still  be  con- 
trolled arbitrarily.  But  here  again  there  seems  to  be  a 
falling  short  of  complete  recognition  of  full  democracy. 
There  will  be  authorized  leaders  whose  business  it  will  be  to 
determine  just  what  directions  this  control  shall  take.  Hu- 
manity, even  democratic  humanity,  is  not  ready  to  take 
authority  unto  itself  and  accept  the  responsibility  of  de- 
termining its  own  destiny  by  means  of  its  own  intelligence. 
This  was  the  implicit  proposal,  it  will  be  recalled,  of  Soc- 
rates to  the  Greek  world.  Such  a  proposal,  impossible  in 
the  days  of  Socrates,  might  be  possible  now,  if  all  intelligent 
men  were  willing  to  play  the  game  in  that  way,  for  the 
high  hopes  of  an  intelligent  democracy.  Now  and  then  we 
seem  ready  to  commit  ourselves  to  such  a  program.  It  is 
the  ideal  of  science  and  of  democracy;  it  is  implicit  in  all 
the  revolutions  of  the  modern  world;  it  is  the  only  logical 
stopping-place  for  all  those  who  are  in  sympathy  with  the 
revolt  from  medievalism.  But  we  are  not  yet  quite  brave 
enough  for  it.  Meanwhile  we  linger  under  a  sort  of  hy- 
brid social  control,  supposedly  democratic  and  intelligent, 
but  largely  determined  by  old  folkway  attitudes  inherited 
from  the  Middle  Ages  or  more  remote  times. 

Education  as  the  Human  Interpretation  of  the  Evolu- 
tionary Process. — The  evolutionary  process  is  usually 
stated  in  terms  of  a  struggle  for  existence,  although  such  a 
statement  is  not  by  any  means  conclusive  or  inclusive.  On 
the  lower  levels,  however,  struggle  seems  to  be  a  more  or 
less  constant  factor ;  and  in  that  struggle  a  certain  type  of 
fittest  is  selected  for  survival.  Such  an  outcome  seems, 
however,  to  be  very  distinctly  wanting  in  ethical  quality. 
Educational  processes  find  their  place  in  the  evolutionary 


DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION      369 

movement  by  stating  the  process  in  slightly  different  fash- 
ion. The  selection  of  individuals  for  survival  is  to  be  on 
other  grounds  than  the  fittest  in  the  lower  sense.  Social 
selection,  moral  selection,  intelligent  selection — these  are 
to  take  the  place  of  natural  selection.  Rather,  selection  is 
to  go  farther  still ;  the  task  of  education  is  to  be  that  of  fit- 
ting as  many  as  possible  for  survival.  This  is  to  be  accom- 
plished in  two  main  wtiys.  First,  by  means  of  the  applica- 
tion of  eugenic  principles  a  better  general  level  of  the  race  is 
to  be  attained.  Second,  by  means  of  a  more  natural  educa- 
tion a  larger  realization  of  possible  individual  contribution 
to  the  sum  total  of  human  living  is  to  be  assured.  Educa- 
tion is  to  be  consciously  utilized  in  this  way  for  the  elimina- 
tion of  social  evils  and  the  prevention  of  social  waste,  by 
starting  the  young  along  lines  of  social  development  which 
do  not  lead  to  the  traditional  ills.  This  is  scientifically  pos- 
sible (involving  evolutionary  science)  and  democratically 
desirable  (saving  as  many  as  possible  for  the  life  of  free- 
dom in  society) . 

The  Ultimate  Problem  of  Democratic  Education. — We 
have  here  set  forth  several  worthy  aims  or  interpretations  of 
education  which  have  developed  under  the  growth  of  the 
modern  social  and  democratic  movement.  "Universal  in- 
telligence," "gradual  development  of  a  social  mind,"  "in- 
strument of  social  control,"  "highest  term  in  the  evolution- 
ary process, ' ' — each  of  these  is  distinctly  a  valuable  offering 
to  the  understanding  of  the  educational  problem  in  a  democ- 
racy under  modern  scientific  development.  But  the  fact  is 
that  they  do  not  work  out  democratically.  Universal  intel- 
ligence becomes  a  program  of  cramming  and  stuffing  ma- 
terials; gradual  development  of  a  social  mind  becomes  ac- 
commodation to  some  present  sectarian  partisanship,  or  an 
acceptance  of  such  a  conception  of  the  status  quo  as  to  make 
all  progress  impossible ;  the  instrument  of  social  control  be- 


370  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

comes  the  right  of  special  interests — economic,  religious,  po- 
litical, or  some  other — to  criticize  all  programs  of  educa- 
tion and  to  decide  what  materials  shall  be  taught  and  what 
withheld,  what  activities  shall  be  allowed  and  what  permit- 
ted ;  and  that  highest  term  in  the  evolutionary  process  be- 
comes identified  with  some  local,  racial,  or  national  Kultur 
as  an  expression  of  the  absolute,  and  evolution  comes  to  an 
end  before  its  term. 

The  ultimate  problem  of  education  in  a  democracy  is  not 
found  in  securing  the  statement  of  ideals  or  materials. 
These  we  have  in  great  abundance,  yet  we  do  not  have  a 
democratic  education.  That  final  problem  lies  in  the  gen- 
eral field  of  method,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  field  of  under- 
standing of  the  processes  of  experience.  Democracy  is 
something  far  more  than  a  vague  ideal ;  certainly  it  is  not 
an  ideal  that  will  realize  itself.  And  certainly  democracy 
is  not  a  material  at  all ;  there  are  no  materials  that  are  es- 
sentially democratic  and  that  under  all  circumstances  can 
be  depended  upon  to  produce  a  democratic  outcome.  De- 
mocracy is  an  attitude  of  mind,  a  keen  sense  of  a  particular 
type  of  human  relationships,  a  willingness  to  face  realities 
in  a  peculiar  way,  a  breaking  down  of  certain  types  of  old 
artificial  barriers,  and  an  opening  of  the  whole  world  of  hu- 
manity to  new  freedoms  of  personal  participation  in  the 
goods  of  the  world  and  to  new  resources  of  social  contact. 
Education  for  this  sort  of  living  demands  knowledge,  of 
course ;  but  it  demands  more  than  knowledge.  It  demands 
a  sense  of  direction;  it  demands  a  method.  This  method 
will  be  primarily  psychological,  of  course;  but  it  will  be 
constructed  out  of  a  psychology  that  is  thoroughly  demo- 
cratic and  social,  as  much  so  as  is  the  aim  that  it  seeks  to 
realize.  We  have  these  modern  aims,  and  we  have  much 
modern  material  worthily  able  to  nourish  our  democratic 
moods ;  but  we  retain  in  our  educational  practice  the  same 


DEMOCRATIC  MOVEMENT  IN  EDUCATION      371 

old  methods  almost  completely.  Our  school  administra- 
tions, at  least,  our  administrative  attitudes,  are  still  largely 
autocratic.  Our  class-room  teaching  is  still  largely  tradi- 
tional. The  curriculum  is  handed  down  to  our  teachers  in 
a  purely  Platonic  fashion,  our  teachers  teach  materials  they 
do  not  understand,  and  our  pupils  take  on  materials  out  of 
this  "preexistent  treasure-house"  of  books  and  libraries. 
"We  are  molding  our  children  to  old  forms  of  thinking,  to 
old  absurd  obediences,  to  old  customs  and  traditions,  to  the 
type  of  a  world  that  exists  nowhere  any  longer,  except  in 
pedantic  text-books  and  in  the  mind  of  a  thoroughly  insti- 
tutionalized teacher.  This  is  not  democratic.  There  is  no 
hope  for  democracy  in  such  a  program.  Yet  our  political 
institutions  are  professedly  democratic,  and  we  say  that  we 
live  in  a  democracy.  "No  amount  of  our  ordinary  type  of 
education  will  develop  personal  self-control  and  the  habit 
of  responsibility. ' '  And  democracy  is  just  those  two  things 
— personal  self -direction  in  an  intelligent,  responsible  social 
way. 

Now  our  chief  difficulty  in  the  development  of  such  an 
education  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  do  not  see  that  it 
involves  the  development  of  the  same  essential  attitudes  and 
practices  in  the  community  life.  We  shall  never  get  a 
democratic  product  from  our  schools  as  long  as  our  com- 
munity life  as  a  whole  remains  essentially  traditional,  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  the  graduates  of  such  an  educa- 
tion would  find  themselves  outside  the  community  life  be- 
cause their  education  would  unfit  them  to  live  in  society. 
But  there  is  another  reason  why  such  an  outcome  is  impos- 
sible: school  education  is  not,  even  now,  as  effective  as  the 
education  of  the  life  outside  of  school.  No,  all  the  phases 
and  institutions  of  our  social  living  must  be  made  demo- 
cratic, if  our  education  is  to  become  such — our  economics, 
our  industries,  our  civics  and  our  ward  politics,  our  ethics 


372  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

and  our  community  moralities,  and  our  conceptions  and  our 
practices.  Education  is  not  apart  from  life ;  it  is  just  the 
adult  generation  giving  its  own  world  to  the  new  genera- 
tion. And  be  sure  the  adult  generation  will  not  give  a  very 
different  world  from  that  in  which  itself  lives.  The  adult 
generation  cannot  keep  its  own  private  evils,  traditions, 
greeds,  autocracies,  shams,  follies,  and  insincerities,  and  ask 
the  school,  working  right  in  the  midst  of  these  effective  in- 
fluences, to  produce  a  new  generation  committed  to  good,  to 
science,  to  altruism,  to  democracy,  to  honesty,  to  wisdom, 
and  to  sincerity.  The  democratic  problem  in  education  is 
not  primarily  a  problem  of  training  children;  it  is  the 
problem  of  making  a  community  within  which  children  can- 
not help  growing  up  to  be  democratic,  intelligent,  disci- 
plined to  freedom,  reverent  of  the  goods  of  life,  and  eager  to 
share  in  the  tasks  of  the  age.  A  school  cannot  produce  this 
result ;  nothing  but  a  community  can  do  so. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

SOME  CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM   HISTORY 

THE  last  chapter  closed  with  the  statement  "A  school  can- 
not produce  these  (democratic)  results;  nothing  but  a  com- 
munity can  do  so. ' '  Thus  we  see  that  we  have  come  back  to 
the  folkways  from  which  we  set  out.  At  least,  we  have  come 
back  to  the  community,  where  once  the  folkways  reigned 
supreme  and  within  which  that  thoroughly  successful  edu- 
cation of  the  primitive  world  was  secured.  We  have  made 
the  round  of  the  ages.  We  have  seen  the  folkways  dissolve 
in  Athens  and  come  to  larger  construction  in  the  Europe 
of  the  Middle  Ages;  we  have  seen  the  great  structure  of 
habit  and  institution  persist  under  the  reconstructive  move- 
ments of  the  ages.  We  now  see  that  life  must  be  lived  in 
contact  with,  and  against  the  background  of,  this  great  and 
persistent  structure  of  tradition.  To  be  cut  off  completely 
from  that  is  to  be,  in  deadly  truth,  a  man  without  a  coun- 
try. But  the  community  of  to-day  is  not  the  primitive 
community  with  which  we  began.  There  have  been  great 
gains.  "Socrates  discovered  free  personality  and  moral 
freedom,  and  made  the  greatest  of  all  epochs  in  the  world's 
history."  Primitive  Christianity  opened  the  way  of  es- 
cape for  the  individual  from  the  larger  suppressions  of  the 
imperialistic  community,  declaring  (as  interpreted  in  the 
Reformation)  that  the  good  man  shall  live  by  his  own  good- 
ness, not  by  the  second-hand  goodness  furnished  by  institu- 
tions, though  institutions  do  offer  the  opportunity  for  the 
organization,  development,  and  discipline  of  his  own  good- 

373 


374  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ness.  And  the  Teutonic  barbarian  brought  in  that  "fresh 
blood  and  youthful  mind ' '  which  against  all  the  demands  of 
mere  institutional  absolutism  have  stood  firm  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  free  intelligence,  free  personality,  and  a  free  world, 
thus  bringing  the  ideals  and  developments  of  science  and 
democracy  to  the  modern  world. 

Over  against  these  positive  gains  the  institutional  or  folk- 
way  attitude  has  set  up,  age  after  age,  new  finalities  of  doc- 
trine and  of  practice.  "We  have  seen  this  on  the  largest 
scale  in  medievalism.  That  is  its  most  conspicuous  achieve- 
ment in  world-organization.  But  never  has  there  been  an 
age  that  has  not  produced  some  special  development  of  this 
desire  for  finality,  some  final  material  or  some  ultimate 
theory.  The  ages  are  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  old  the- 
ories whose  memories  are  still  with  us,  indeed,  whose  devo- 
tees are  still  with  us,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment.  For  it 
has  been  the  consistent  tendency  of  all  reforms  to  succeed 
too  easily,  that  is,  to  accomplish  some  result  and  then  to  sub- 
side. But  the  reform  has  not  been  merged  into  the  whole 
process  of  progress.  Something  of  it  remains — some  creed, 
some  touch  of  a  strong  personality,  some  scrap  of  old  organi- 
zation— and  this  sets  itself  up  as  an  independent  aim  or  end 
in  itself.  Soon  custom,  tradition,  and  sanctity  gather 
round  this  attitude  and  it  becomes  part  of  the  permanent 
habit  of  the  world.  This  tendency  is  human ;  that  is  to  say, 
it  is  found  in  all  the  various  interests  of  our  living — eco- 
nomic, political,  moral,  religious,  and  educational.  History 
seems  from  one  point  of  view  but  a  long  search  for  that 
final  solution  of  all  our  problems,  a  magic  element,  like  the 
"philosopher's  stone"  of  the  Middle  Ages.  How  many 
times  has  this  final  solution  been  found !  How  frequently 
has  it  been  grappled  to  the  soul  of  an  age,  established  in  its 
beliefs,  and  depended  upon  as  the  last  word  in  all  human 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      375 

striving!  How  often  has  humanity  been  disillusioned  of 
these  finalities!  How  often  has  it  returned,  undismayed, 
to  the  next  that  offered ! 

The  net  result  appears  in  the  fact  that  we  are  now  the 
possessors  of  many  of  these  solutions,  each  of  which  has 
largely  turned  out  to  be  not  a  solution  at  all,  but  one  more 
element  in  the  problem  that  is  to  be  solved.  Its  adherents 
prove  to  be  not  reformers,  but  obstructionists  of  a  stubborn 
sort,  unless  the  world  consents  to  be  saved  after  their  own 
particular  formula.  Their  logic  turns  back  toward  Aristo- 
tle, and  their  real  task  is  not  to  solve  problems  at  all,  but  to 
preserve  their  own  dignity. 

In  this  way  we  have  come  down  to  the  present.  It  is  an 
age  filled  with  the  shoutings  of  clamorous  partisanship,  with 
many  schemes  pressing  for  recognition,  and  each  scheme  is 
quite  fully  convinced  that  its  own  solution  is  the  only  genu- 
ine one.  There  is,  of  course,  no  lack  of  humor  in  the  situa- 
tion. One  of  the  most  vigorous  of  the  partisan  voices  does 
not  hesitate  to  declare,  "The  more  I  think  about  my  own 
solution  of  this  problem  of  education,  the  more  convinced  I 
am  that  it  is  the  right  one.'*  We  are  primarily  concerned 
with  the  present,  and  with  what  it  means  for  the  future. 
Hence,  before  we  take  leave  of  our  subject,  we  must  under- 
take a  brief  survey  of  these  clamorous  groups  illustrating 
the  character  of  the  age.  Perhaps  such  a  survey  will  give 
us  some  clue  to  the  larger  nature  of  the  problem.  Let  it 
not  be  unnoted  that  we  are  here  seeking  not  a  solution  to 
a  problem,  but  a  more  inclusive  understanding  and  state- 
ment of  the  problem;  and  a  very  complicated  part  of  this 
problem  is  found  in  the  certainties  of  these  educational 
parties  that  their  solutions  are  correct.  We  shall  look  at 
a  few  of  the  many  that  exist. 

The  Classics  Party  in  the  Present. — As  we  have  seen  in 


376  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

the  course  of  this  study,  historic  movements  have  produced 
lasting  heritages  of  culture  materials  which  have  come 
down  to  us  under  the  general  estimate  of  classical.  At 
times  these  have  been  ignored,  sometimes  because  they 
were  lost,  sometimes  because  overfulsome  eulogy  had  disil- 
lusioned the  world  of  them.  But  over  and  over  they  have 
been  gathered  up  and  used  to  make  life  rich  and  full  of 
the  sense  of  the  deep  and  poignant  beauty  of  the  world 
when  it  was  young.  Now  somehow  the  race  does  not  seem 
inclined  to  live  on  those  high  levels  continuously;  besides, 
occasionally  there  are  other  aspects  of  the  world  that  seem 
to  be  worthy  of  genuine  regard.  The  result  seems  to  be 
that  the  classicists  take  this  as  a  sort  of  personal  affront, 
or  as  a  deliberate  effort  to  degrade  the  world  from  its  lib- 
eral aspirations. 
One  writer  says : 

Liberal  training,  once  a  distinction  and  an  advantage,  has  been 
cheapened  until  it  is  held  in  contempt,  unless  in  some  way  com- 
bined with  the  immediately  practical.  As  in  Mark  Twain's  story 
there  were  no  gentlemen,  because  everyone  was  a  gentleman,  or 
claimed  to  be  one,  so  there  is  now  no  intellectual  aristocracy, 
because  everyone  is  an  intellectual  aristocrat.  .  .  .  Like  the 
church,  which  was  inundated  by  the  spiritually  unfit  in  the  time 
of  Constantine  and  lost  its  high  quality,  intellectual  life  under 
democracy  has  become  debased  through  taking  to  itself  the  whole 
world  of  the  intellectually  unfit.  .  .  .  Unable  to  bring  every 
mountain  low,  democracy  sticks  its  head  in  the  sand-flats  of  its 
own  creation  and  refuses  to  concede  the  existence  of  high  ground 
at  all.  .  .  .  There  is  bound  to  be  liberal  education  somewhere. 
.  .  .  The  liberal  arts,  once  sitting  serene  in  the  high  citadels  of 
aristocratic  privilege,  have  descended  and  offered  themselves  to 
the  common  dwellers  in  the  plain;  if  they  are  flouted  we  may 
look  to  see  them  return  to  their  blessed  heights  and  adopt  their 
old-time  attitude  of  reserve.  Liberal  culture  will  again  be  aris- 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      377 

toeratized;  the  knowledge  that  is  distinction,  that  is  power,  that 
is  happiness,  will  once  more  hang  beyond  the  reach  of  the  com- 
mon man, — and  there  we  shall  be  again,  with  the  same  old  prob- 
lem of  inalienable  right  on  our  hands.1 

The  Scientific  Party  in  the  Present. — Passing  by  the 
arguments  of  such  propagandists  as  Huxley  and  Spencer, 
referred  to  and  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter,  we  find  much 
vigorous  reasoning  as  to  why  the  public  attention  and 
support  should  be  accorded  to  science  and  scientific  educa- 
tion. Professor  Karl  Pearson's  "Grammar  of  Science" 
sets  forth  these  arguments  in  effective  summary  thus: 

The  scope  of  science  is  to  ascertain  truth  in  every  possible 
branch  of  knowledge.  There  is  no  sphere  of  inquiry  which  lies 
outside  the  legitimate  field  of  science.  To  draw  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  scientific  and  philosophical  fields  is  obscurantism.  .  .  . 
The  scientific  method  is  marked  by  the  following  features:  (a) 
Careful  and  accurate  classification  of  facts  and  observation  of 
their  correlation  and  sequence;  (b)  the  discovery  of  scientific 
laws  by  aid  of  the  creative  imagination;  (c)  self-criticism  and 
the  final  touch-stone  of  equal  validity  for  all  normally  constituted 
minds.  .  .  .  The  claims  of  science  to  our  support  depend  on: 
(a)  The  efficient  mental  training  it  provides  the  citizen;  (b)  the 
light  it  brings  to  bear  on  many  social  problems;  (c)  the  increased 
comfort  it  adds  to  practical  life;  (d)  the  permanent  gratification 
it  yields  to  the  esthetic  judgment. 

Surely  we  might  now  be  content  to  learn  from  the  pages  of 
history  that  only  little  by  little,  slowly,  line  upon  line,  man,  by 
the  aid  of  organized  observation  and  careful  reasoning  can  hope 
to  reach  knowledge  of  the  truth,  that  science  in  the  broadest 
sense  of  the  word,  is  the  sole  gateway  to  a  knowledge  which  can 
harmonize  with  our  past  as  well  as  with  our  possible  future 
experience.  As  Clifford  puts  it,  "Scientific  thought  is  not  an 

i  Showerman,  "The  American  Idea";  "School  Review,"  Vol.  XIX, 
pp.  159-60. 


378  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

accompaniment  or  condition  of  human  progress,  but  human  prog- 
ress itself."  1 

The  Sociological  Party  in  the  Present. — Passing  by  the 
fact  discussed  in  our  general  view  of  the  democratic  ideal 
of  education  that  this  doctrine  may  mean  several  very 
diverse  things,  we  find  that  in  general  there  is  a  more  or 
less  loosely  bound  group  of  partisans  who  insist  upon  the 
general  doctrine  of  socializing  education.  Their  attitude 
may  be  seen  in  the  following  quotation : 

The  school  can  contribute  to  the  intelligence  of  its  rising  citi- 
zenship by  drawing  directly  upon  that  large  fund  of  present-day 
social,  political,  and  economic  knowledge  that  has  made  the  low- 
priced  magazine  the  tremendous  power  it  has  become  in  our 
national  life  in  the  last  fifteen  years.  .  .  .  The  school  should  be- 
gin to  teach  the  nature  of  the  cooperative  functions  of  society. 
For  example,  the  pupils  should  learn  in  a  simple  way  the  func- 
tions of  the  policeman,  the  fireman,  and  the  street-cleaner.  They 
should  understand  that  the  streets  belong  to  the  people,  and  that 
they  are  loaned  in  part  to  transit  companies,  and  to  telegraph, 
telephone,  lighting,  and  water  companies.  They  should  be  made 
to  see  the  public  nature  of  these  corporations.  .  .  .  All  study  of 
civics,  history,  and  other  forms  of  social  science  should  clarify 
the  pupil's  understanding  of  the  social  forces  and  problems  of 
his  immediate  environment.  For  example,  civics,  instead  of 
studying  governmental  organization  beginning  with  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  should  begin  with  community  functions 
in  District  Number  Ten,  or  the  Nineteenth  Ward.  .  .  .  The  com- 
munity functions  of  the  neighborhood,  village,  ward,  and  city  are 
concrete,  simple,  immediate,  and  personal  ...  it  is  a  simple  step 
to  the  Understanding  of  the  great  national  questions  that  are 
claiming  the  serious  thought  of  every  patriot.  The  trusts,  the 
bosses  big  and  little,  the  control  of  legislation  through  caucus 
rule,  and  the  influence  upon  the  big  leaders  by  the  "interests," 
capital  and  labor,  social  legislation,  lobbies  legitimate  and  other- 

iOp.  cit.,  p.  37. 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      379 

wise, — all  of  these  and  hundreds  of  other  questions  are  vital  to 
the  civilization  we  are  building.  Our  young  people  must  under- 
stand this,  because  under  a  despotism  the  government  may  be 
better  than  the  sum  total  of  the  citizenship,  while  under  a  democ- 
racy the  government  may  be  worse,  but  never  can  be  better. 
This  is  the  fundamental  reason  for  our  expensive  school  system.1 

This  sort  of  doctrine  is  especially  prominent  in  educa- 
tional discussion  to-day.  It  has  several  variants,  of  which 
we  shall  examine  one  or  two  briefly.  But  on  the  whole  it 
tends  to  emphasize  the  function  of  preparation  for  actual 
and  intelligent  participation  in  civic  life.  Hence  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  upholders  of  this  doctrine  should  now  be 
particularly  insistent  upon  being  heard. 

The  Moral  Education  Party  and  Its  Platform. — The 
first  variant  of  the  sociological  party  to  which  attention 
may  be  called  is  the  moral  education  group.  This  group  is 
not  internally  unified ;  it  has  various  divergent  aspects  and 
programs.  But  on  the  whole  its  plans  may  be  fairly  repre- 
sented by  the  following : 

Always  and  everywhere  it  is  important  that  men  should  be 
good.  To  be  a  good  man — it  is  more  than  half  the  fulfilment  of 
life!  Better  to  miss  fame,  wealth,  learning,  than  to  miss  right- 
eousness. And  in  America,  too,  we  must  demand  not  the  mere 
trifle  that  men  shall  be  good  for  their  own  sakes,  but  good  in 
order  that  the  life  of  the  state  may  be  preserved.  A  widespread 
righteousness  in  a  republic  is  a  matter  of  necessity.  Where  all 
rule  all,  each  man  who  falls  into  evil  courses  infects  his  neighbor, 
corrupting  the  law  and  corrupting  still  more  its  enforcement. 
The  question  of  manufacturing  moral  men  in  a  democracy  be- 
comes, accordingly,  urgent  to  a  degree  unknown  in  a  country 
where  but  a  few  selected  persons  guide  the  state. 

There  is  also  special  urgency  at  the  present  time.  The  ancient 
and  accredited  means  of  training  youth  in  goodness  are  becoming, 
I  will  not  say  broken,  but  enfeebled  and  distrusted.  .  .  .  The 

i Lewis:     "Democracy's  High  School,"  pp.  6-8. 


380  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

hurry  of  modern  life  has  swept  away  many  uplifting  intimacies. 
...  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  in  such  a  moral  crisis  the  com- 
munity turns  to  that  agency  whose  power  is  already  felt  benefi- 
cently in  a  multitude  of  other  directions — the  school.  The  cry 
comes  to  us  teachers,  "We  established  you  at  first  to  make  our 
children  wiser;  we  want  you  now  for  a  profounder  service.  Can 
you  not  unite  moral  with  intellectual  culture  ?" 1 

The  Program  of  the  Vocational  Party. — This  is  the  sec- 
ond variant  of  the  sociological  program.  It  takes  two 
turns,  one  in  the  direction  of  vocational  guidance,  and  the 
other  in  the  direction  of  vocational  education,  properly  so 
called.  The  program  of  the  latter  is  again  complicated  by 
being  confused  with  industrial  education  of  many  sorts, 
and  the  whole  problem  of  vocational  guidance  is  still  rather 
obscurely  hidden  in  psychology.  But  something  of  the 
common  problem  of  the  two  aspects  of  this  program  appears 
in  the  following  statement: 

In  the  shifting  currents  of  social  progress  some  institutions 
once  powerful  are  left  weakened,  if  not  helpless,  while  other  in- 
stitutions wax  strong  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  time.  The 
homes  of  the  urban  industrial  classes  have  not  the  moral  influence 
over  children  exercised  by  the  family  life  of  the  farmer;  the 
church  grips  fewer  members  with  its  theological  doctrines  than  it 
did  a  century  ago;  the  trades  do  less  for  their  apprentices  in  the 
modern  factory  than  they  did  when  lodged  in  households;  the 
press  has  more  influence;  libraries  are  more  plentiful;  and 
the  school  has  grown  to  be  a  modern  giant  where  once  it  was  a 
puny  babe.  The  same  old  institutional  forces  beat  upon  the 
nervous  systems  of  men,  but  the  relative  distribution  of  their 
work  has  changed,  and  is  changing.  .  .  . 

Just  now  the  shifting  of  vocational  education  from  the  field  of 
industry  to  the  school  is  the  crucial  problem  of  our  school  organ- 
ization. The  schoolmaster  is  confronted  with  the  task  of  dealing 
with  a  problem  alien  to  his  experiences  and  contrary  to  his  tra- 

i  Palmer,  "Ethical  and  Moral  Instruction  in  Schools,"  pp.  2-5. 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      381 

ditions.  .  .  .  The  schoolmaster  must  grope  for  his  solutions  in  the 
few  established  facts  of  his  new  case  and  build  new  methods, 
which  will  often  be  radical  departures  from  all  that  his  conserva- 
tive mind  has  known  and  revered  in  scholastic  standards.  In 
accepting  responsibility  for  the  vocational  training  of  American 
children,  the  school  plunges  itself  into  a  period  of  transition  in 
which  old  ideals  are  futile  and  new  ideals  are  but  half -discovered. 
Clear  thinking,  the  great  need  of  the  moment,  is  obscured  by  the 
controversies  that  inevitably  arise  when  two  sets  of  traditions, 
born  of  two  separate  institutions,  are  suddenly  thrust  together  in 
a  conflict  which  dulls  tolerance,  increases  vehemence,  and  destroys 
poise.1 

These  last  words  are  applicable  to  the  whole  present  situ- 
ation, in  which,  however,  not  merely  two  sets  of  traditions 
are  in  conflict,  but  many  sets,  each  claiming  more  or  less  a 
sort  of  "apostolic  succession"  in  the  educational  fulfil- 
ment of  promise. 

Some  More  Specialized  Parties. — We  should  be  pro- 
longing this  discussion  unduly  if  we  should  set  forth  at  the 
same  length  all  other  parties  to  the  general  educational 
discussion  of  to-day.  But  there  are  certain  specialized 
groups  of  interested  people,  each  with  some  rather  definite 
part,  or  fragment,  of  a  program,  whom  we  must  not  omit 
from  this  list.  Many  of  these  are  particularly  emphatic  in 
their  efforts  to  attract  public  attention,  but  all  of  them 
have  some  real  contribution  to  make  to  the  general  discus- 
sion; and  what  they  have  to  offer  must  be  considered  as 
we  come  toward  the  working  out  of  that  more  complete 
and  adequate  program  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  these 
discordant  efforts  in  the  education  of  the  future  democ- 
racy. "We  must  note  the  work  and  the  program  of  the 
kindergartners,  with  the  additional  reinforcement  that  this 
aspect  of  education  has  received  in  recent  years  through  the 
work  of  Montessori  and  her  followers.  The  religious  edu- 

i  Snedden,  "The  Problem  of  Vocational  Education,"  Introduction. 


382  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

cation  group  must  be  mentioned,  with  their  program  "to 
inspire  the  educational  forces  of  our  country  with  the  re- 
ligious ideal,  to  inspire  the  religious  forces  of  our  country 
with  the  educational  ideal,  and  to  keep  before  the  public 
mind  the  ideal  of  religious  education  and  the  sense  of  its 
need  and  value."  We  must  also  note  the  industrialists, 
most  of  whom  are  employers  of  labor  who  seem  to  want  to 
make  sure  that  the  labor  supply  shall  be  neither  curtailed 
nor  be  permitted  to  grow  up  too  ignorant  to  be  of  service 
in  industry ;  the  sex  hygienists,  who  feel  that  they  are  fac- 
ing the  "problem  of  the  twentieth  century";  and  the 
social  center  party,  with  its  broad  doctrine  that  the  "social 
center  movement  is  buttressing  the  foundations  of  democ- 
racy." These,  and  others  which  might  be  enumerated, 
help  to  swell  the  output  of  written  and  spoken  discussion 
that  almost  overwhelms  us  to-day. 

If  we  now  add  to  these  more  important  and  minor  par- 
ties those  other  partisans  of  habit  and  silence,  the  tradi- 
tionalists, who  "don't  know  what  all  this  argument  is 
about"  and  who  are  largely  content  to  have  anything  go 
on  in  the  school,  just  so  long  as  the  schools  themselves  go 
on,  we  shall  have  a  fairly  complete  picture  of  the  present 
situation.  The  world  is  full  of  parties,  each  with  its  more 
or  less  specific  cure  for  the  evils  of  the  age.  Some  of  these 
parties  recognize  the  partial  character  of  their  programs 
and  are  ready  to  cooperate  with  any  and  all  who  are  seri- 
ously working  for  the  more  adequate  program.  But  many 
are  immersed  in  their  own  importance  and  have  no  thought 
of  any  cooperation. 

The  Defect  of  this  Partisanship.— The  chief  basis  of 
this  partisanship  is  at  the  same  time  its  real  defect.  Of 
course  this  is  not  unusual.  Most  partisanships  are  thus 
based  upon  defects  of  analysis.  Almost  without  exception 
the  parties  enumerated  above  stand  upon  some  chosen 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      383 

material  of  education;  they  advocate  some  particularly 
valuable  type  of  knowledge  or  subject  matter.  This  is 
truer  of  the  larger  historic  parties  than  of  the  more  spe- 
cialized modern  ones.  The  majority  of  these  latter  are 
attempting  to  cure  some  specific  evil  in  the  common  life, 
and  they  are  addressing  themselves  to  some  functional 
aspects  of  the  social  situation,  having  only  a  secondary  in- 
terest in  their  particular  materials.  But  on  the  whole  the 
major  parties  to  the  intellectual  quarrels  of  to-day  are 
quarreling  about  historic  materials  of  education,  and  they 
are  doing  it  with  many  of  the  same  arguments  that  were 
used  by  their  prototypes  of  the  seventeenth  century.  They 
are  distinctively  to  be  called  "materialists"  in  education, 
just  as  those  seventeenth  century  partisans  were.  A 
chosen  subject-matter  is  the  basis  of  their  organization  and 
their  fight ;  and  this  is  the  chief  defect  of  their  position. 

For  they  are  fighting  in  large  measure  as  if  psychology 
were  still  in  the  far  future,  as  it  was  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  In  a  sense,  this  is  the  case.  Psychology  adequate 
to  the  illumination  of  most  of  our  problems  is  still  very 
much  in  the  future.  But  the  discussion  of  educational 
problems  can  now  be  carried  on  in  the  actual  light  of  at 
least  some  few  psychological  principles.  It  is  only  too 
true  that  educational  psychology  has  still  its  major  tasks  to 
accomplish;  especially,  must  its  emphasis  pass  over  from 
the  purely  structural  and  experimental  phase  to  the  social 
and  creative  phase.  But  some  of  this  preliminary  work  has 
been  done,  and  it  is  possible  to  determine  the  standing  of 
an  educator  to-day  by  finding  out  to  what  extent  his  edu- 
cational discussions  take  into  account  the  genuine  develop- 
ments of  structural  and  social  psychology.  Although  the 
foundations  in  psychology  are  not  complete,  there  are  some 
genuine  fundamentals  upon  which  we  may  stand.  We  shall 
see  more  of  this  in  another  section. 


384  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Now  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  though  we  have  re- 
turned to  the  community,  history  has  brought  us  nothing 
but  this  rather  large  muddle  of  warring  sects,  this  seeming 
confusion.  True,  this  muddle,  this  confusion  of  parties,  is 
better  than  the  deadly  certainty  of  the  folkways;  we  have 
achieved  this  one  gain  anyhow.  History  has  broken 
through  what  Browning  calls  the  "ghastly  smoothness"  of 
life;  it  has  "turned  earth's  smoothness  rough."  But  more 
than  this,  we  can  here  see  some  of  the  actual  elements  of 
the  problem  of  education,  whether  of  the  community  or  of 
the  individual.  The  folkways  we  have  always  with  us,  with 
their  traditions,  customs,  and  habits.  We  have  the  sophist, 
too,  with  his  insistence  upon  living  by  impulse,  immediate 
feelings,  or  half-grown  opinion.  And  we  have  the  propa- 
gandist, the  follower  of  some  outworn  solution,  who  is  too 
loyal  to  an  old  hope  or  to  a  radiant  personality  to  allow 
his  solution  to  decently  die;  or  who,  perhaps,  by  his  blind 
devotion  keeps  alive  some  fragment  of  doctrine  that  will 
serve  the  world's  need  in  some  larger  synthesis  in  some 
later  age.  History  has  been  a  series  of  researches,  a  set  of 
world-wide  experiments  into  the  hidden  reaches  of  human 
nature.  Many  elements  that  must  enter  into  the  ultimate 
solution  of  the  problem  of  education  have  been  discovered, 
and  these  we  have  as  the  permanent  gain  from  history. 
We  have  many  false  elements,  also,  and  not  a  few  blind 
alleys  which  claim  to  be  thoroughfares. 

But  the  most  important  element  in  the  whole  problem 
still  remains  obscure — the  element  of  method.  Materials 
we  have  in  plenty,  even  in  confusion.  But  we  do  not  know 
what  to  do  with  them.  Educational  research  is  now  in  the 
field  of  method.  Psychology  is  the  chief  tool  of  this  re- 
search ;  but  psychology  is  of  so  many  sorts  that  we  seem  to 
be  getting  only  more  confusion  from  its  work.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  problem  of  education  is  of  many  sorts. 


CONCRETE  RESULTS  FROM  HISTORY      385 

The  community,  the  individual  child,  the  child  in  the  group, 
the  varied  materials  that  have  come  to  us  out  of  the  past — 
these  are  all  involved  in  the  psychology  of  the  case.  The 
task  of  psychology  looms  so  large,  and  it  is  so  important 
that  we  get  something  of  a  right  perspective  of  it  out  of  this 
historical  review,  that  it  seems  necessary  to  devote  a  whole 
chapter  to  the  discussion.  Accordingly  we  turn  to  the  spe- 
cific statement  of  the  present  situation  and  the  task  of 
psychology. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL  EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEM   OF   THE 
PRESENT 

WE  have  seen  the  constant  tendency  of  the  human  mind 
to  surrender  all  its  achievements  to  the  control  of  habit, 
custom,  and  tradition — the  folkways  of  the  group  and  the 
protection  of  fixed  institutions.  There  is  no  denying  this 
fact.  Educational  effort  must  recognize  it,  accept  it,  and 
make  use  of  it.  But  correlative  to  this  tendency  there  is 
another,  though  really  a  part  of  the  same  general  mental 
movement — the  tendency  to  turn  every  new  discovery  in 
the  direction  of  method  into  some  sort  of  educational  mate- 
rial, i.e.,  to  identify  this  new  method  with  some  special 
subject-matter  and  to  block  the  doorway  of  escape  from 
old  materials  with  some  new  material,  until  it  seems  that 
the  human  mind  must  be  essentially  afraid  of  freedom 
and  that  it  can  only  be  happy  when  it  has  wrapped  its 
powers  round  about  with  some  sort  of  institutionalism,  or 
buried  them  in  some  phase  of  materialism. 

The  Meaning  of  this  Fact. — Now,  while  there  is  no 
denying  the  fact  that  all  living  tends  to  establish  itself  in 
the  forms  of  habit  and  custom,  there  are  two  things  to  be 
noted  about  this  fact.  First,  this  tendency  does  conserve 
what  is  developed,  at  least,  the  mechanical  aspects  of  the 
development,  so  that  whatever  intelligence  is  possessed  by 
individual  or  community  may  be  freed  for  the  task  of  con- 
tinuous production  of  larger  values.  And  second,  this 
tendency  toward  habit  and  custom  does  offer  its  own  means 
of  escape  from  itself.  For  there  is  involved  in  this  tend- 
ency toward  habit  another  fact  of  equal  importance,  viz., 

386 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM   387 

the  conflict  of  habits.  For  habits,  customs,  traditions, 
folkways,  and  institutions  are  not  exclusive  of  each  other. 
They  overlap ;  they  compete ;  they  mutually  contradict ;  and 
they  come  into  inevitable  conflict.  This  is  just  as  certain 
to  happen  as  that  they  should  exist  at  all.  These  conflicts 
offer  the  chance  to  escape.  They  are  the  crises,  as  we 
called  them  in  an  earlier  section,  out  of  which  innovation 
arises;  they  stimulate  inventiveness;  they  call  out  initia- 
tive. Out  of  these  crises  in  tradition  and  custom  science 
has  arisen.  Indeed,  science  has  become  the  avowed  pro- 
gram of  this  departure  from  custom  and  tradition.  Science 
is  the  intellectual  statement  of  the  break  from  tradition  and 
the  growing  results  of  that  break  as  it  endlessly  renews  it- 
self. On  the  social  side,  democracy  is  the  avowed  program 
of  the  break  from  custom  and  tradition. 

But  even  science  tends  to  become  materialistic  and  to 
set  up  completed  results,  classified  materials,  as  its  goal, 
just  as  democracy  continually  slips  from  its  high  purpose 
and  takes  refuge  in  traditionalisms.  It  would  seem  that  if 
science  is  to  escape  from  this  materialism,  it  must  keep  to 
the  spirit — the  endless,  the  lastingly  active  search  for 
truth.  This  keeping  of  the  spirit  of  the  search  becomes 
more  and  more  difficult  as  the  results  of  the  search,  the 
materials  of  science,  pile  up,  and  pride  of  accomplishment 
comes  in.  Some  scientists  feel,  even  now,  that  science  has 
come  into  a  rather  decadent  condition.  ' '  The  acceptance  of 
the  results  of  scientific  work  as  constituting  science  is 
surely  one  of  our  grievous  faults.  For  science  is  not  clas- 
sified knowledge, — a  complete  thing;  but  rather  classifica- 
tion or  organization  of  knowledge, — an  active  process.  If, 
therefore,  we  wish  to  rescue  science  from  its  present  de- 
cadent condition,  one  of  the  first  steps  seems  to  be  the 
recognition  of  this  distinction."1  That  is  to  say,  the  cure 

i  Mann :  "Science  in  Civilization  and  Science  in  Education,"  "School 
Rev.,"  Vol.  XIV,  p.  667. 


388  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

for  this  almost  universally  recognized  evil  is  the  replacing 
of  the  materialistic  conception  of  science  by  the  active, 
creative  conception.  In  exactly  the  same  manner  our  social 
processes  tend  to  become  consummated,  to  be  finished. 
Democracy  tends  to  become  materialistic,  i.e.,  to  assume 
that  certain  historic  institutions  are  essentially  democratic, 
and  that  certain  documents  assure  us  our  democracy, 
whether  we  take  thought  for  it  or  not.  Thus,  among 
thoughtful  people  there  is  fear  for  both  science  and  democ- 
racy. With  reference  to  the  latter,  Jane  Addams  wrote 
some  years  ago,  "The  ideal  of  democracy, — 'a  people  rul- 
ing/— the  very  name  of  which  the  Greeks  considered  so 
beautiful,  no  longer  stirs  the  blood  of  the  American  youth, 
and  .  .  .  real  enthusiasm  for  self-government  must  be 
found  among  the  groups  of  young  immigrants  who  bring 
over  with  every  ship  a  new  cargo  of  democratic  aspira- 
tions. ' '  *  And  it  has  been  pointed  out  by  thoughtful 
scholars  that  the  very  successes  of  science  in  piling  up  great 
masses  of  assured  facts  will  tend  toward  dogmatisms. 

Now  the  cure  for  these  decadent  tendencies  in  our  democ- 
racy is  assumed  to  lie  in  the  redirection  of  our  whole  in- 
tellectual attitude  toward  political  institutions.  Criticism 
must  take  the  place  of  docility,  and  reconstructive  action 
the  place  of  mere  obedience.  Eternal  vigilance  is  not 
merely  the  price  of  liberty  in  the  first  place ;  it  is  a  part  of 
the  fixed  cost  of  maintaining  liberty  forevermore.  It  is  to 
be  doubted  whether  there  is  any  place  for  mere  obedience  in 
a  democracy  since  democracy  is  grown  out  of  the  active 
cooperations  of  all  its  constituent  members.  But  American 
democracy  has  cultivated,  perhaps  not  unnaturally,  a  type 
of  unthinking  obedience  and  acceptance  not  unlike  that 
expected  of  the  subjects  of  old  monarchies.  De  Tocque- 
ville  more  than  sixty  years  ago  called  attention  to  this  fac- 

i  Cf.  "The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets." 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM      389 

tor  in  American  life  in  his  "Democracy  in  America." 
Professor  Dewey  has  recently  pointed  out  that  the  "Ameri- 
can conception  of  freedom  is  fundamentally  incompatible 
with  the  doctrine  of  duty  as  that  has  developed  in"  cer- 
tain militaristic  countries  of  Europe.  The  cure  for  de- 
cadent democracy  must  be  more  democracy,  i.e.,  more  in- 
telligence in  the  expression  of  our  civic  life.  In  like 
fashion  the  cure  for  decadent  science  must  be  more  of  the 
spirit  of  science,  i.e.,  more  active  and  creative  intelligence 
at  work  in  the  world  of  knowledge,  with  less  of  the  merely 
imitative,  the  merely  repetitive,  and  the  bookish.  And  this 
means  that  science  must  cut  loose  from  the  sciences  and  be- 
come the  instrument  of  all  aspects  of  human  interest. 

What  Does  History  Say  of  These  Things? — Human  na- 
ture does  tend  to  commit  all  its  accomplishments  to  the 
care  of  habit,  custom,  and  institution.  Moreover,  it  has 
been  the  tendency  of  history  to  identify  accomplisher  with 
accomplishment  and  to  commit  human  nature  itself  to  the 
care  of  the  selfsame  habit  and  finality  of  expression.  Out  of 
this  has  grown  the  doctrine  that  "human  nature  is  essen- 
tially unmodifiable, "  since  its  characteristics  were  fixed  in 
the  long  ages  of  primitive  unintelligence.  But  this  doctrine 
seems  to  be  just  the  fallacy  which  both  science  and  democ- 
racy seek  to  avoid.  Science  and  democracy  both  assume  that 
life  can  become  intelligent ;  that  is  to  say,  men  can  really 
learn  to  live  on  the  general  level  of  intelligent  analysis  and 
organization  of  life,  and  they  are  not  condemned  to  live  for- 
ever in  the  control  of  some  old  structure  of  habit.  This 
does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  life  can  dispense  with  its 
great  understructures  of  habit;  but  it  does  mean  that  the 
habitual  element  in  human  life  shall  be  wwderstructure,  and 
not  the  main  accomplishment.  Certainly,  it  means  that  it 
shall  not  be  the  final  statement  of  life  itself.  But  how  is 
this  element  of  habit  to  be  made  and  kept  wwderstructure  ? 


390  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Does  not  history  show  that  habit  and  institution  always 
conquer  innovation,  invention,  and  initiative  ?  What  of  all 
the  protests  that  we  have  come  upon  ?  Are  they  not  all  lost 
in  the  structures  of  institutionalise!  that  now  stand  where 
once  the  protestant  raised  his  rebellious  voice?  Yes,  in 
part;  no,  in  great  measure.  Institutions  have  been  made 
over,  renovated,  renewed,  and  turned  to  new  purposes  and 
goals. 

But  more  than  this,  history  simply  shows  how  such  proc- 
esses have  gone  on  in  the  past,  and  what  must  be  avoided  if 
the  future  is  to  take  other  lines  of  development.  History 
does  not  necessarily  repeat  itself.  In  fact,  in  recent  dec- 
ades history  has  not  been  repeating  itself.  The  Panama 
Canal  was  dug,  completed,  and  turned  to  successful  opera- 
tion because  history  was  kept  from  repeating  itself, — the 
history  of  an  earlier,  prescientific  day.  The  discoveries  in 
medicine,  hygiene,  and  sanitation  are  making  possible  a  new 
distribution  of  the  forces  of  civilization  and  the  reclaiming 
of  vast  areas  of  useless  earth.  But  this  is  possible  in  other 
than  the  material  and  external  aspects  of  our  living;  it  is 
possible  with  reference  to  the  internal,  the  mental,  and  the 
social.  Psychology  will  sometime  certainly  be  able  to  do 
for  these  mental  and  social  aspects  of  our  living  what  sani- 
tation and  hygiene  are  doing  for  the  external  and  physical. 
Indeed,  in  some  presentations  hygiene  includes  both  mental 
and  physical  aspects.  And  just  as  hygiene  and  sanitation 
showed  us  how  the  mistakes  of  the  old  days  at  Panama 
could  be  avoided,  so  psychology  will  tend  to  show  us  how 
the  old  mistakes  in  education  can  be  avoided.  But  just  as 
the  task  of  the  sanitary  expert  was  a  lasting  one,  or  will  be 
a  lasting  one,  as  long  as  work  goes  on  in  regions  where  dis- 
ease is  possible,  so  the  task  of  the  psychological  expert  will 
be  a  lasting  one  as  long  as  education  goes  on  where  igno- 
rance and  mere  habit  are  possible.  The  old  disease-factors 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM   391 

and  conditions  stood  out  before  the  Americans  at  Panama 
when  they  went  there  to  work;  but  the  great  aim — an 
Isthmian  waterway — also  stood  out  before  them.  Hygiene 
and  sanitation  cleared  away  one  and  made  the  other  pos- 
sible; or,  at  any  rate,  these  showed  the  relationships  be- 
tween the  two.  In  education  to-day  the  old  habit  and  in- 
stitutional-conditions stand  out  before  us  as  seemingly  im- 
possible obstructions;  but  the  great  aim  of  democracy — an 
intelligent  people  ruling  themselves  and  organizing  a 
really  human  life  for  every  member  of  the  national  life — 
also  stands  out  before  us.  Psychology  must  do  for  us 
here  what  hygiene  and  sanitation  did  for  us  at  Panama. 
Psychology  must  show  us  the  relationships  between  this  old 
world  of  habit, — the  folkways  of  our  history, — and  this 
larger  world  of  intelligence, — the  protests  of  our  history 
and  the  science  of  our  own  times.  Let  us  see  more  defi- 
nitely just  what  that  problem  is. 

The  Problem  of  Education. — Habit  is  the  essential 
mechanism  of  our  living,  and  to  habit  all  recurrent  activi- 
ties are  committed,  so  that  intelligence  may  be  freed  for 
other  new  and  more  important  tasks.  Habit  does  not  exist 
for  the  sake  of  controlling  the  intelligence,  nor  to  supplant 
the  intelligence,  but  wholly  to  do  the  mechanical  work  of 
life,  so  that  the  intelligence  may  be  free.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  psychology  is  telling  us  that  the  intelligence  is  not  a 
structure  of  the  mind  which  will  continue  to  exist  unused. 
This  complicates  the  problem.  The  intelligence  seems  to  be 
a  function  of  the  mind  which  appears  in  times  of  crisis  to 
help  in  the  readjustment  that  the  crisis  demands;  intelli- 
gence seems  to  be  a  valuable  instrument  for  certain  func- 
tional aspects  of  experience.  When  any  particular  process 
of  adjustment  is  completed,  the  whole  matter  is  turned  over 
to  habit  for  its  more  effective  control.  Intelligence  retires 
from  the  scene.  If  this  new  adjustment  has  been  devel- 


392  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

oped  out  of  an  important  phase  of  experience,  it  may  con- 
tribute to  science.  New  tools  may  be  invented,  new  knowl- 
edges uncovered  and  organized,  and  science  may  be  thus 
enriched.  But  when  the  intelligence  retires  from  the  scene, 
turning  full  control  of  the  new  mechanisms  over  to  habit, 
the  spirit  of  science  also  retires,  leaving  behind  only  some 
new  knowledge  which  will  probably  in  course  of  time  be- 
come material  for  some  curriculum.  Now  if  this  adjust- 
ment has  had  to  do  with  actual  social  and  civic  concerns, 
the  moment  of  reconstruction  has  probably  involved  a  gen- 
uinely scientific  consideration  of  social  factors  in  which  all 
old  institutional  prejudices  have  slipped  away  and  social 
relationships  have  stood  forth  in  something  like  naked  real- 
ity. At  such  a  time  the  spirit  of  democracy  is  present ;  and 
if  such  an  attitude  of  inquiry  into  social  problems  could  be 
maintained,  democracy  would  probably  be  the  ultimate  out- 
come. But  when  intelligence  retires  from  the  scene,  sci- 
ence, the  spirit  of  inquiry,  retires  also,  and  with  these  goes 
democracy,  the  hope  of  a  natural,  human  life.  In  its  place 
there  is  left  only  some  new  bit  of  social  mechanism  which  is 
not  unlikely  to  become  in  good  time  a  further  obstacle  to 
the  real  establishment  of  democracy.  There  are  individuals 
who  have  been  scientists  all  their  lives ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
have  kept  alive  the  spirit  of  inquiry.  Their  spirit  has 
known  the  religious  quality  expressed  by  a  writer  of  old: 
"I  count  not  myself  yet  to  have  attained:  but  one  thing  I 
do,  forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind,  and  stretching 
forward  to  the  things  which  are  before,  I  press  on  toward 
the  goal."  But  this  outcome  was  possible  because  life  had 
come  to  be  a  problem  in  itself.  That  is  to  say,  life  was 
not  merely  made  up  of  problems  big  and  little;  life  was  it- 
self a  continuous  problem  demanding  continuous  thought- 
fulness.  May  it  not  be  said  that  the  one  hope  of  making 
an  intelligent  life  on  earth,  a  life  whose  social  order  shall 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM      393 

be  democracy  and  whose  intellectual  nature  shall  be  science, 
depends  upon  so  using  our  educational  agencies  that  in- 
stead of  making  education  an  answer,  or  a  series  of  an- 
swers, to  problems,  we  should  make  it  the  means  of  pressing 
home  upon  all  people  the  sense  of  life's  problems?  This 
will  mean  that  the  whole  great  complex  of  habit,  custom, 
institution,  organization,  and  stimulation  which  surrounds 
us  shall  come  to  us  as  a  real  world-problem  (which  it  is  to 
serious  minds)  of  such  lasting  complications  and  uncer- 
tainties as  to  impose  upon  all  our  experiences  the  lasting 
problematic  quality  which  is  necessary  to  the  production  of 
thought;  and  out  of  this  it  will  come  to  pass  that  the 
adaptive  aspect  of  experience  and  the  inventive  function  of 
thinking  will  be  continuously  in  evidence,  and  hence  over  all 
of  life  will  linger  the  fine  glow  of  lasting,  intelligent  con- 
sideration. This  is,  when  warmed  to  its  task,  science! 

But  is  this  the  problem  of  education  ?  This  must  be  the 
result  that  our  educational  processes  seek  to  secure,  if  we  are 
to  make  sure  of  our  democracy  and  our  science.  But  this 
is  a  result  that  can  never  be  secured  by  any  program  of  edu- 
cation that  bases  itself  upon  materials  of  any  sort  whatso- 
ever. Science  cannot  secure  the  scientific  attitude  by  feed- 
ing up  youthful  minds  on  the  achieved  results  of  science, 
i.e.,  classified  knowledge.  Democracy  can  find  no  more  ef- 
fective way  of  destroying  the  active  intelligence  that  is 
promised  in  the  normal  child,  and  that  is  essential  to  the 
continuity  of  genuine  self-government,  than  by  insisting 
that  the  prime  material  of  civic  education  is  civics  of  the 
bookish  sort.  This  is  not  a  quibble ;  it  is  the  statement  of 
a  tragic  fact.  It  is  the  fundamental  problem  of  education 
in  a  democracy;  and  its  solution  lies  in  the  psychology  of 
the  intellectual  processes  as  those  processes  appear  in  the 
active  experiences  of  life.  The  problem  of  learning  is  very 
much  less  important,  since  it  is  a  much  later  item  in  a  nor- 


394  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

mal  mental  life.  The  stupid,  tragic  fact  is  that  all  too 
often  the  problem  of  intelligence  is  identified  with  the  prob- 
lem of  learning;  hence  the  problem  of  intelligence  remains 
obscured  and  unsolved,  and  the  deadly  process  of  cram- 
ming takes  the  place  of  a  real  process  of  education,  while 
the  teacher  abdicates  his  function  and  becomes  a  mere  pur- 
veyor of  materials. 

Relations  of  this  Problem  to  the  History  of  Education. 
— We  have  seen  the  significance  of  these  facts  all  through 
the  long  story  of  the  world's  education.  The  innovations, 
i.e.,  the  reforms,  in  the  history  of  education  are  almost 
pathetically  numerous;  and  the  educational  parties  of  to- 
day seem  to  represent  all  these  innovations  of  the  past, 
keeping  them  alive  and  clamorous  as  particular  schemes. 
For  the  fact  is  that  practically  all  past  innovations,  though 
they  may  have  begun  with  the  intention  of  working  intelli- 
gently, i.e.,  of  attacking  the  problem  of  education,  soon 
found  themselves  involved  in  the  defense  of  some  particular 
material;  that  is  to  say,  they  soon  reached  a  finality,  a 
solution,  and  in  self-defense  were  compelled  to  stand  by  it. 
This  means,  of  course,  that  for  them  the  problem  no  longer 
existed,  since  they  had  found  the  solution.  But  it  means 
much  more.  It  means  that  their  own  intelligence  had  re- 
tired from  the  field,  since,  as  we  have  seen,  intelligence  re- 
tires when  the  problem  is  solved.  Thus  another  brave  ef- 
fort fails,  and  the  world  once  more  sinks  to  the  level  of 
custom  and  habit.  One  of  the  most  obvious  illustrations 
of  this  tendency  is  seen  in  the  gradual  degradation  of 
humanism  into  Ciceronianism.  But  practically  all  other 
materials  have  suffered  the  same  fate.  Even  the  psychologi- 
cal doctrines,  which  promised  to  open  the  way  for  the  cre- 
ative activities  of  mind,  have  not  escaped.  Pestalozzi, 
Herbart,  and  Froebel — each  and  all  became  lost  in  the 
elaboration  of  certain  materials  which  particularly  illus- 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM      395 

trated  the  application  of  their  particular  doctrines.  So 
psychology,  which  should  have  been  working  out  the  con- 
ditions under  which  mind  functions  freely  and  creatively, 
becomes  lost  under  the  accretions  of  habit  and  surrenders  to 
the  demands  of  a  fixed  material.  Not  infrequently  it  ac- 
cepts the  position  of  chief  defender  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
materialists  by  showing  how  adequately  the  chosen  mate- 
rials serve  the  needs  of  mental  development. 

To  be  sure,  external  pressures  are  sometimes  brought  to 
bear  to  secure  these  results.  For  example,  Froebel  's  earlier 
efforts  to  foster  self -activity  in  the  children  of  his  kinder- 
garten were  all  too  obviously  democratic  and  were  prophetic 
of  possible  disaster  to  existent  institutions  in  autocratic 
Germany ;  therefore  the  heavy  hand  of  government  soon  put 
an  end  to  all  such  nonsense.  At  other  times  the  church 
has  been  overzealous  in  the  same  direction.  At  present 
conservative  political  forces  in  America  seem  to  feel  the 
dangers  that  lurk  in  an  education  that  is  too  intelligent. 
Hence,  for  example,  these  forces  are  working  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  type  of  industrial  education  that  shall  head 
off  and  prevent  the  establishment  of  a  thorough  system  of 
vocational  education  which  should  include  all  the  educa- 
tional agencies  now  at  work.  The  great  problems  of  states- 
manship in  the  future  will  largely  revolve  around  the  na- 
ture of  our  public  education  and  its  control.  That  is  now 
clearly  seen  in  England  and  it  will  soon  be  seen  here.  The 
fate  of  democracy  is  involved  in  the  direction  which  our 
education  takes. 

The  Task  of  Psychology. — The  clue  to  the  educational 
problem  of  the  present  lies  in  psychology.  To  be  sure, 
materials  must  be  considered,  and  any  educational  process 
will  involve  materials ;  but  the  question  of  materials  is  not 
the  dominant  one,  nor  the  important  one.  The  problem  is 
not  even  that  which  was  stated  by  Pestalozzi  as  the  "psy- 


396  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

ehologizing  of  the  materials  of  education. ' '  From  another 
point  of  view  the  structure  of  social  order  seems  the  most 
important  aspect  of  education,  and  this  is  an  important  re- 
sult to  be  worked  for.  Herbart  thought  this  "becoming 
gradually  conscious  of  the  moral  order  of  the  world"  was 
the  real  goal  of  the  process.  But  he  conceived  this  moral 
order  as  being  already  in  existence  in  a  Platonic  sense; 
hence  his  psychology  has  become  formal  and  lifeless. 

Education  involves  the  conception  of  an  active  process 
of  creating  experience  and  developing  selfhood  in  each  in- 
dividual member  of  the  community.  In  this  process  the 
particular  child  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  the  object  of  the 
process,  as  being  worked  upon  by  teachers,  but  as  the  sub- 
ject of  the  process,  as  gradually  coming  to  "power  on  his 
own  life  and  on  the  world. ' '  Democracy,  as  a  social  order, 
knows  no  fixed  goals ;  the  tasks  of  democracy  stretch  before 
us  endlessly.  Science,  as  the  method  of  the  intellectual  life, 
knows  no  final  limits.  The  universe  seems  infinite,  and  the 
reaches  of  man 's  experience  are  beyond  present  comprehen- 
sion. Education  in  a  democracy  must  conceive  itself  as  the 
process  by  which  the  immature  members  of  the  community 
become  ready  to  live  in  this  democratic  and  scientific  uni- 
verse, where  freedom  from  old  superstitions  is  being  as- 
sured. They  must  be  made  ready  to  live  socially,  morally, 
creatively,  constructively,  and  responsibly.  Such  an  edu- 
cation differs  from  the  education  with  which  we  began  this 
study  as  democracy  differs  from  autocracy.  Such  an  edu- 
cation must  be  true  to  the  ideal — democracy;  and  it  must 
use  the  means — science.  And  science  here  means  psychol- 
ogy as  the  constant  interpreter  and  guide,  over  and  above 
all  materials  of  whatsoever  sort. 

Democracy  sets  forth  an  ideal  of  a  social  order  in  which 
there  shall  be  no  purely  artificial  barriers  to  the  contacts 
of  its  members ;  in  which  there  shall  be  broadest  toleration 


and  continuous  attention  to  the  possibilities  of  cooperative 
neighborliness  and  public-spirited  citizenship.  To  be  sure, 
many  persons  of  the  present  social  order,  who  have  been 
trained  in  old,  exclusive  atmospheres  and  who  find  the 
ideal  of  democracy  disturbing,  will  not  welcome  the  exten- 
sion of  that  ideal  to  the  full  region  of  education ;  but  on  the 
whole,  the  world  seems  determined  to  achieve  such  an  aim, 
if  only  for  experimental  purposes.  Now  the  question  be- 
comes: "Is  this  democratic  ideal  tenable  from  the  stand- 
point of  psychology?  Does  psychology  hold  out  any  hope 
of  its  possible  realization?"  The  answer  must  be  "No," 
if  the  older  psychology,  which  underlay  older  social  orders, 
be  still  accepted.  Old  aristocratic  and  autocratic  political 
systems  were  based  on  an  implicit  psychology  which  as- 
serted that  human  beings  (with  the  exception  of  those  be- 
longing to  the  ruling  classes)  were  passive  in  their  vir- 
tues, but  active  in  their  viciousness;  hence  order  must  be 
imposed  from  above,  the  world  must  be  carefully  policed, 
and  education  must  not  go  too  far,  lest  vicious  traits  become 
intelligently  vicious.  Old  economic  doctrines  were  based 
on  the  same  general  psychology.  It  was  held  that  man  is 
naturally  lazy  and  that  he  will  work  only  when  he  is  in 
danger  of  starvation.  On  such  foundations,  of  course,  the 
effort  to  build  a  democracy  would  be  absurdly  futile. 

But  all  such  foundations  have  been  discredited  by  the 
psychology  that  has  grown  out  of  the  doctrines  of  evolu- 
tion. Man  is  just  as  active  by  nature  as  the  rest  of  the 
universe;  children  are  overflowing  with  activities.  The 
task  of  education  or  of  politics  or  of  industry  is  not  to  get 
the  individual  to  act,  but  rather  to  help  him  organize  these 
overflow  activities  with  which  he  begins  life  so  that  he  may 
act  wisely  and  well.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  psychology 
to-day.  It  transforms  the  whole  face  of  education,  and  it 
makes  possible  an  educational  program  which  can  take 


398  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

democracy  as  its  goal  and  can  use  science  as  its  means. 
Its  goal  is  a  society  in  which  men  are  actively  at  work 
constructing  a  good  life  for  all,  and  making  sure  that  all 
have  a  chance  to  share  that  good  life;  its  intelligence  is 
kept  actively  alive  by  being  engaged  at  the  task  of  working 
out  the  endlessly  changing  conditions  under  which  that 
good  life  for  men  becomes  possible.  But  this  psychology 
is  the  outgrowth  of  the  evolutionary  doctrine  that  action 
and  experience  precede  thinking;  that  adjusting  reactions 
are  the  basic  factors  in  experience;  and  that  thinking 
comes  in  at  later,  complicated  levels  to  perform  adjust- 
ments not  possible  to  the  mere  mechanisms  of  simpler  be- 
havior. Thinking  thus  becomes  real  in  the  solution  of 
actual  problems;  in  the  working  out  of  worthy  aims  and 
goals;  and  in  the  determinate  organization  of  the  proc- 
esses of  experience  as  deliberate  means  for  the  realization 
of  those  selected  goals.  Thinking  is  not  imposed  upon  ex- 
perience, as  Plato  taught,  and  as  the  school  and  other  pre- 
existent  institutions  have  echoed  ever  since.  Thinking  is 
the  instrument  of  experience  in  its  efforts  to  make  a  world 
of  order  and  value.  Thinking  is  science, — the  spirit  of 
science,  the  tool  of  science.  But  thinking  is  not  life ;  it  is 
the  tool  of  life. 

Now  there  is  such  a  psychology.  It  is  active,  rather  than 
passive.  It  is  voluntaristic,  rather  than  intellectualistic. 
It  is  expressive,  rather  than  primarily  receptive.  It  is 
vital,  rather  than  academic.  It  is  found  in  men,  rather 
than  in  books.  It  is  social,  rather  than  individualistic. 
It  has  to  do  with  accomplishment  and  with  activity,  rather 
than  with  mere  learning,  but  it  makes  learning  an  aid  to 
accomplishment.  It  may  come  out  of  laboratories,  but  if 
so,  it  is  only  because  it  first  went  into  the  laboratories  out 
of  the  world  of  action.  It  tells  of  the  processes  of  real 
experience;  it  works  out  real  motives;  it  deals  with  the 


THE  PRESENT  EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEM      399 

urges  of  actual  impulses ;  it  takes  into  account  real  desires ; 
it  tells  how  we  lay  up  real  stores  of  living  experiences,  in- 
cluding knowledge,  how  we  develop  the  powers  of  reflective 
thinking  (if  we  do),  and  how  out  of  all  these  aspects  of 
experience  the  growing  fact  of  personal  selfhood  gradually 
appears,  molding  all  experiences  into  experience,  and  giving 
to  life  something  of  unity  and  integrity. 

Such  a  psychology  is  scarcely  a  science  in  its  own  right. 
It  is  probably,  rather,  a  sort  of  handmaiden  to  all  the  sci- 
ences, including  that  practical  science  called  the  science 
of  teaching.  Such  a  psychology  is  especially  the  servant 
of  the  democratic  ideal;  not,  indeed,  a  slavish  servant  ac- 
cepting all  the  wild  and  weird  desires  of  uncritical  demo- 
cratic aspirations  as  final  truth,  but  that  helpful  servant 
who  lends  her  own  technical  knowledge  for  the  criticism 
of  the  excessive  and  exaggerated  modes  of  her  master. 
Education  for  democracy  depends  upon  the  development 
of  this  more  social  and  creative  type  of  .psychology,  and 
also  upon  its  use  in  analyzing  the  actual  relationships  of 
the  child  to  the  adult  world  and  in  stating  the  processes 
of  their  interaction. 

Such  a  psychology  will  be  able  to  tear  to  pieces  the  as- 
sumptions of  the  folkway  attitude,  or  of  any  other  static 
conservatism.  It  will  penetrate  the  dogmatisms  of  the  old 
educational  theories  that  always  ended  in  some  form  of 
materialism,  and  it  will  tend  to  bring  to  an  end  the  mate- 
rialistic partisanships  and  clamorings  of  the  half-intelli- 
gent movements  which  we  have  noted  in  the  last  chapter. 
Out  of  this  psychology  will  come  a  theory  of  education 
fitted  to  the  expanding  conceptions  of  our  democratic  life,  a 
theory  that  will  make  education  as  thoroughly  social,  moral, 
practical,  and  vital  as  it  was  in  the  folkway  community, 
while  at  the  same  time  making  it  as  intelligent  as  modern 
democracy  and  science  demand  and  promise  that  it  shall  be. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE   PRESENT    AS   A   PART   OF   HISTORY 

WITH  such  a  general  historical  survey  and  summary 
completed,  we  must  take  one  last  glance  as  we  "  swing  out 
into  the  present."  From  such  a  survey  we  come  into  a 
present  that  is  neither  complete  nor  self-satisfied.  We  have 
heard  the  clamors  of  warring  sects  and  parties;  we  have 
seen  the  evidences  of  work  still  to  be  done,  "the  little 
done,  the  undone  vast."  History  is  not  ended,  for  all 
these  varied  movements  seem  to  be  alive  and  to  be  strug- 
gling more  or  less  intelligently,  more  or  less  bitterly,  for 
their  proper  recognition.  We  have,  as  we  may  say,  "ran- 
sacked the  ages";  and  we  bring  back  some  worthy  gains, 
though  perhaps  not  all  that  the  hopes  of  the  past,  the  as- 
pirations of  the  ages,  have  promised.  Some  goals  have 
proved  illusory,  some  hopes  fallacious,  and  some  purposes 
too  difficult.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  we  shall  be  compelled, 
soon  or  late,  to  recover  through  long  and  arduous  effort 
whatever  of  real  value  we  have  lost  along  the  way. 

What  Have  We  Gained? — We  may  here  enumerate  only 
a  few  of  the  major  gains.  First,  may  we  not  say  that  we 
have  gained  the  sense  of  the  dramatic  quality  of  history, 
that  quality  which  makes  fact  stranger  than  fiction?  Fact 
is  stranger  and  more  interesting  than  fiction  when  it  is 
seen  in  its  proper,  natural,  dramatic  setting  in  the  play  of 
human  hopes  and  purposes.  Individuals,  groups,  nations, 
institutions,  ideas,  and  systems  of  thinking — all  these  have 
played  for  a  place  in  the  world's  life,  and  human  destinies 
have  turned  on  their  failure  or  success.  Men  have  put 

400 


THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY       401 

their  hearts  into  history,  into  the  making  or  marring  of  the 
human  story,  into  the  control  of  destiny.  In  the  earliest 
ages  such  control  was  sought  through  magical  means, 
through  prayer,  or  other  religious  forms ;  and  always  force 
has  been  used  as  a  means  of  control.  In  the  modern 
period  the  effort  has  been  to  use  intelligence.  The  plot  and 
the  actors  have  changed,  but  human  interest  is  at  the 
heart  of  both  plot  and  acting.  The  race  has  worked  hard 
in  its  efforts  to  understand  this  seeming  drift  of  experi- 
ence, and  hopes  have  run  high  or  fallen  low.  Men  have 
done  gallant  deeds,  shameful  deeds,  and  colorless  deeds 
during  the  long  ages  of  repression.  Men  have  risen  to 
sublime  heights  of  unselfish  sacrifice  and  service,  or  have 
fallen  to  the  lowest  depths  of  disgrace.  This  has  occurred 
in  real  history,  not  merely  in  the  pages  of  romance.  Soc- 
rates and  Jesus  are  real  characters  in  history,  and  though 
much  of  myth  has  gathered  around  each  of  them,  especially 
the  latter,  yet  the  world  cannot  be  too  often  reminded  that 
both  and  each  of  them  once  lived.  But  "Attila  the  Hun" 
was  a  real  character,  too,  and  Catherine  di  Medici.  His- 
tory has  swung  between  these  great  extremes,  and  out  of  it 
has  come  the  deeper  understanding  of  our  common  human- 
ity. 

Second,  we  have  caught  some  glimpses  of  some  of  the 
great  factors  that  have  helped  to  produce  this  dramatic 
quality.  We  have  seen  the  habitual,  the  customary,  the 
traditional  aspects  of  human  nature  in  full  control  of  all 
the  conditions  of  life  in  the  primitive  world ;  we  have  seen 
the  numerous  protests  against  this  folkway  organization; 
we  have  seen  this  stationary  attitude  ally  itself  with  all 
the  economic,  political,  social,  religious,  and  intellectual 
elements  existent  (at  least  above  the  surface) ;  and  work- 
ing with  these  we  have  seen  it  come  to  full  conscious  under- 
standing of  itself  in  the  magnificent  structure  of  civiliza- 


402  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

tion  that  filled  the  world  and  the  imaginations  of  men  at 
the  height  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Over  against  all  this  we 
have  seen  the  deeper  impulses  and  energies  of  life  and 
growth  groping  to  expression  in  the  full  thoughts  of  Socra- 
tes, the  human  hopes  of  Jesus,  the  fresh  blood  and  youth- 
ful mind  of  the  Teutonic  barbarians,  and  the  almost  innu- 
merable revolts  of  the  modern  world,  until  these  find  some 
more  adequate  organization  in  the  general  doctrine  of 
social  evolution  in  the  nineteenth  century.  History  has 
been  the  long  struggle  between  these  two  tendencies  in 
human  nature — between  habit,  custom,  and  tradition  on 
the  one  hand,  and  impulse,  growth,  change,  and  recon- 
struction on  the  other.  Men  have  lived  through  every 
variant  difference  between  these  extremes.  History  that 
passes  by  these  vivid  contrasts,  and  the  forces,  passions, 
energies,  and  hopes  that  made  and  make  them  real,  leaving 
us  but  the  cold  world  of  fact,  is  not  real  history,  but  only 
sterile  scholarship  gone  wrong  through  fear  of  life. 

In  the  third  place,  we  may  have  gained  some  glimpse  of 
the  relationships  of  means  to  ends  in  human  history.  "We 
have  come  upon  many  aims;  history  has  been  a  long,  long 
tragedy  of  ends  unrealized,  doubtless,  in  part  unrealizable. 
Why  is  this  true?  Mainly  because  men  have  very  slowly 
learned  that  aims  do  not  get  themselves  enacted  into  reality 
merely  through  their  own  intrinsic  values,  or  through  the 
pious  hopes  of  their  advocates.  The  evolutionary  doctrine 
has  elaborated  the  general  concept  of  mechanism  as  the 
clue  to  the  understanding  and  control  of  the  world  of  na- 
ture. That  conception  seems  at  first  glance  to  be  particu- 
larly hostile  to  ideals.  But  it  is  rather  the  real  hope  of  the 
attainment  of  our  human  ideals,  for  it  has  taught  us  that 
our  ideals  and  aims  are  not  just  the  happy  accidents  of  his- 
tory, or  the  results  of  pious  hopes;  they  are  rather  the  ac- 
tualization of  men's  programs,  and  these  programs  can  be 


THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY      403 

worked  out,  because  the  world  can  be  depended  upon. 
Nature,  for  the  purposes  of  human  life  and  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  ideals,  can  be  stated  in  terms  of  dependable 
mechanism.  Nature  is  not  erratic.  At  least,  dependable 
mechanisms  can  be  found  in  nature ;  and  these  can  be  used 
for  the  accomplishment  of  ends  desired,  at  least  in  so  far 
as  our  desired  ends  can  be  stated  in  terms  of  these  mechani- 
cal possibilities.  Thus  our  aims  can  be  actually  assured. 
This  is  the  significance  of  science — nature  becomes  orderly 
and  humanity  learns  how  to  work  through  nature  to  the 
accomplishment  of  some  desired  purpose.  This  is  a  long, 
slow  task,  but  little  by  little,  as  we  learn  how  to  state  the 
more  and  more  complicated  mechanisms  of  the  world,  we 
learn  how  to  control  the  conditions  of  living  so  as  to  make 
possible  a  life  nearer  to  our  hearts'  desires.  But  out  of 
this,  and  more  than  this,  we  have  learned  that  ideals  and 
aims  do  not  realize  themselves  or  come  true  ad  hoc.  Every 
ideal  must  establish  its  appropriate  mechanism.  If  we 
want  to  reach  a  new  ideal,  we  must  develop  a  new  mechan- 
ism. This  we  have  not  fully  learned  as  yet.  Accordingly, 
we  have  been  going  on  in  the  old  ways,  attempting  to 
organize  an  education  for  democracy  by  using  the  educa- 
tional mechanisms  of  a  predemocratic,  and  even  an  anti- 
democratic, type  of  social  order.  History  has  been  such  a 
tragic  story  of  defeated  ends  and  aims  because  men  have 
thought  that  ideals  were  largely  self-realizing.  But  if 
ideals  were  self-realizing,  they  would  also  be  self -eliminat- 
ing. It  may  be  that  the  task  of  realizing  a  purpose  is  long 
and  difficult ;  but  if  we  have  built  into  its  being  the  struc- 
ture of  an  adequate  mechanism,  we  shall  be  sure  of  its  en- 
during quality.  Every  aim  or  ideal  that  is  realizable  at 
all  must  have  its  appropriate  means  of  realization,  and  the 
tragedy  of  the  past  will  become  the  folly  of  the  present  if 
we  do  not  learn  how  to  make  our  gains  secure  by  giving  to 


404  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

our  ideals  and  aims  the  permanence  of  the  world  itself  in 
terms  of  effective  mechanisms. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  folkways 
and  all  through  our  story,  mechanism,  in  the  form  of  habit 
or  custom,  is  the  most  fatal  of  diseases  if  it  goes  too  far  or 
gets  out  of  control.  Science  must  keep  ahead  of  its  own 
mechanisms;  intelligence  must  lead.  The  developed  and 
developing  machinery  of  the  world  must  be  kept  at  work  in 
the  beneficent  service  of  humanity,  and  it  must  be  kept 
flexible  enough  to  yield  to  the  continuous  demands  for  re- 
construction. It  is  the  old  story.  Life  cannot  get  ahead 
without  building  up  these  mechanisms  of  habit ;  and  it  can- 
not get  ahead  if  it  builds  them  up  too  securely. 

The  Present  and  the  Past. — Looking  back  over  the  ways 
we  have  come,  we  seem  to  see  little  but  problems,  unless  it 
be  unsuccessful  solutions  of  those  problems.  From  such  an 
enterprise  we  seem  to  have  come  back  with  nothing  definite 
and  permanent.  But  that  is  a  mistaken  view,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  in  a  preceding  paragraph.  In  addition  to  all 
this  there  is  one  further  consideration:  we  are  trying  to 
live  in  a  democratic  fashion,  and  in  a  democracy  there  are 
very  few  problems  that  have  a  final  statement.  Democracy 
is  itself  a  permanent  problem;  hence  most  of  the  problems 
that  appear  will  be  permanent  problems  whose  solutions 
will  change  from  age  to  age.  In  a  democratic  social  order, 
wherein  science  is  seeking  to  become  the  method  of  living 
and  of  control,  a  final  answer  is  not  the  ideal  goal.  Prob- 
lems become  more  and  more  complicated.  Their  roots  are 
in  the  folkways  of  the  past  and  in  our  own  habitual  liv- 
ing, their  stems  are  set  in  the  deep  and  variant  soils  of  his- 
tory, and  their  branches  reach  out  beyond  the  vision  of  the 
present  into  the  distant  future.  History  digs  up  many 
problems,  and  settles  few  or  none.  Certainly,  the  history 
of  education  settles  few  or  none.  The  task  of  solving 


THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY      405 

problems  runs  over  into  other  phases  of  educational  study, 
as  we  have  seen,  and  into  which  it  is  not  our  province  here 
to  enter.  But  that  which  history  demonstrates  conclu- 
sively— that  psychology  must  furnish  the  clue  to  the  deter- 
mination of  our  educational  problems — may  not  be  lightly 
avoided.  It  is  the  application  of  the  most  complete  devel- 
opments of  psychology  to  the  interpretation  of  the  educa- 
tional task.  What  history  contributes  in  the  way  of  prob- 
lems, psychology  must  analyze  and  determine. 

One  item  more  in  this  connection.  Democracy  can  have 
no  hope  of  ever  escaping  from  the  stress  of  problems.  Or 
perhaps  we  should  say  that  if  democracy  ever  does  so  es- 
cape and  lose  the  sense  of  facing  problems,  then  intelli- 
gence will  disappear,  science  will  decay,  and  democracy 
will  die.  The  very  possibility  of  democracy  turns  upon 
the  permanency  of  the  problematic  element  in  human  liv- 
ing. Intelligence  functions  only  in  the  presence  of  some 
problematic  situation.  Now  we  have  seen  in  the  course  of 
this  story  how  we  have  been  swept  far  out  from  the  certain- 
ties of  the  old  folkways,  with  their  unconsciousness  of  the 
forces,  interests,  and  energies  of  life,  into  the  uncertainties 
of  the  present,  with  its  endless  problems,  its  science,  and  its 
profound  hopes  of  democracy.  The  problems  of  the  past 
were  in  keeping  the  world  secure,  and  of  rendering  it  free 
from  pain  and  problems.  The  great  problem  of  the  present 
is  in  keeping  alive  the  realization  of  the  fact  that  we  live 
in  a  world  of  unstable  equilibrium,  in  a  world  of  problems, 
and  that  the  way  to  meet  problems  is  to  recognize  their 
existence,  not  to  ignore  them  in  the  interest  of  a  fancied 
security.  Problems  make  democracy  possible,  since  out  of 
the  existence  of  problems  comes  the  larger  intelligence 
which  is  able  to  deal  with  life  in  a  democratic  way.  It  is 
not  fewer  but  more  problems  that  we  must  have.  The 
social  and  educational  ideal  of  the  past  stated  itself  in 


406  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

terms  of  a  final  adjustment  to  a  peaceful  environment. 
The  educational  ideal  of  to-day  is  doing  its  best  to  recog- 
nize the  continual  complication  of  issues  and  practices  in 
a  democracy,  and  hence  it  attempts  to  state  itself  in  terms 
not  of  ultimate  finality  of  adjustment,  but  of  that  capacity 
for  adjustment,  that  plastic  adaptability,  which  will  make 
possible  the  continuous  reorganization  of  society  and  social 
institutions  whatever  may  happen  in  the  social  order. 

One  Final  Problem. — Taking  leave  of  all  these  factors 
and  the  gains  that  we  have  gathered,  we  must  note  one 
final  fact.  Education  is  a  social  process,  and  it  has  been 
such  in  every  progressive  period.  But  during  periods  of 
stagnation  old  practices  cling  and  become  formalized,  until, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  times  education  seems  entirely  cut  off 
from  connection  with  the  vital  currents  of  life.  It  becomes 
more  and  more  remote  from  actual  motives,  more  and  more 
purely  intellectual.  This  intellectual  element  has  some 
excuse  for  existence,  of  course.  In  a  complicated  society 
where  few  children  can  have  actual  access  to  the  realities 
of  experience,  either  with  physical  objects  and  processes 
or  with  social  factors,  education  must  content  itself  with 
becoming  a  description  of  experience,  instead  of  being  ex- 
perience itself.  The  hope  is  that  this  description  of  experi- 
ence, taken  from  books  for  the  most  part,  may  help  the 
childish  mind  to  grow  and  live  as  if  the  experience  had 
been  real.  In  other  words,  in  our  complicated  modern 
social  conditions  a  conceptual  statement  of  experience  must 
take  the  place  of  a  perceptual  participation  in  real  living. 
So  it  would  seem,  at  any  rate.  But  of  course  this  substi- 
tution has  its  dangers.  It  becomes  more  and  more  intel- 
lectual, wordy,  remote,  " bookish,"  academic,  unreal.  A 
world  of  books, — a  sort  of  Platonic  world  of  preexistent 
ideas, — is  set  over  against  the  world  of  actual  experiences, 
and  it  becomes  a  sort  of  second-hand  ''academic"  environ- 


THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY      407 

ment,  which  competes  with  the  real  world  and  the  common 
social  environment;  so  that,  as  Bergsoii  says,  the  schools, 
doing  their  work  in  this  second,  rather  unreal,  environment 
of  the  books,  tend  not  to  nourish  the  real  life  of  the  child, 
but  to  build  up  upon  that  real  life  a  second  sort  of  mental 
structure, — which  he  calls  a  ' '  parasite  soul. ' '  The  cure  for 
this  would  seem  to  be  the  actual  substitution  of  the  "con- 
versation of  concrete  individuals  for  the  pale  abstractions 
of  thought. ' '  How  is  this  to  be  accomplished  ? 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  all  through  history  men  have 
been  asking  for  a  more  comprehensive  treatment  of  human 
nature;  and  they  have  been  trying  to  answer  their  own 
demand  by  setting  forth  from  age  to  age  whatever  has  been 
found  of  significance.  Occasionally,  these  fragmentary  de- 
mands and  contributions  find  a  comprehensive  organization 
in  reconstructive  theory, — and  a  new  age  is  ushered  in. 
This  happened  in  the  field  of  general  science  with  the  pres- 
entation of  the  Darwinian  doctrines.  There  is  some  evi- 
dence that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  such  a  largely  reconstruct- 
ive outlook  in  the  field  of  education  at  the  present  time.  At 
any  rate,  we  seem  to  be  on  the  edge  of  a  great  and,  as  yet, 
largely  unknown  laud:  some  few  explorers  have  gone  into 
this  land,  and  they  report  possibilities.  The  great  war  is 
making  demands  that  can  be  answered  only  as  we  learn  a 
new  procedure  in  education;  no,  not  an  entirely  new  pro- 
cedure; rather,  as  we  complete  the  procedure  that  we  have 
come  upon  here  and  there,  in  the  course  of  this  survey, — 
the  procedure  that  is  called  democratic.  "Experimental 
Schools"  have  been  working  in  this  direction  for  two  dec- 
ades. The  "Dewey  Experiment"  in  Chicago  and,  more 
recently,  the  "Gary  system"  represent  advance  work,  and 
hopeful  progress.  The  task  of  education  becomes,  in  Eng- 
land, the  most  important  concern  of  statesmanship.  The 
existence  of  that  task  is  clear:  but  how  shall  it  be  accom- 


408  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

plished?  Theories,  in  plenty,  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
with  us,  out  of  history ;  criticisms  of  the  traditional  and  the 
contemporary  activities  in  education  are  continuous ;  in  the 
deep  undercurrents  of  public  opinion  hopes  of  a  more  intel- 
ligent social  order  may  be  found :  what  seems  lacking, — as  a 
final  clue  ?  Is  it  not  theory  ?  Do  we  not  need  a  large  and 
comprehensive  Theory  of  Education,  that  will  bring  into 
order  and  make  ready  for  use  all  these  confused  masses  of 
particular  theory,  old  materials  and  common  practice,  whose 
endless  details  we  have  come  upon  in  history,  and  whose 
more  or  less  glaring  outcomes  we  see  all  about  us :  a  Theory 
of  Education  that  will  accomplish  for  this  confused  world 
of  educational  hope  and  effort  what  the  Theory  of  Evolu- 
tion did  for  the  confused  world  of  biological  speculation  and 
observation  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century?  A 
theory  that  will  tend  to  bring  order  out  of  confusion,  intelli- 
gence out  of  chaos,  and  control  out  of  these  warring  tradi- 
tional and  accidental  conditions  ? 

For  such  a  Theory  of  Education  the  materials  have  been 
slowly  gathering;  some  of  the  preliminary  work  has  been 
done,  as  we  have  seen;  but  not  all.  The  background  has 
not  yet  been  fully  cleared ;  the  theory  of  evolution  has  not 
been  thoroughly  applied  to  the  general  problem  of  educa- 
tional restatement;  science  has  not  yet  consented  to  devote 
its  energies  unreservedly  to  the  task  of  human  development, 
though  its  consent  is  not  distant.  The  content  of  culture 
has  not  yet  been  freed  from  its  old  taint  of  predemoeratic 
"humanism,"  which  set  the  "liber"  over  against  the  "ser- 
vus."  Platonic  exaltation  of  reason,  that  grows  out  of  ex- 
perience, above  the  experience  that  produces  it  is  still 
educational  "good  form."  Conceptions  of  "human  na- 
ture" which  justify  on  grounds  of  "native  endowment" 
gross  abuses  of  "human  nature"  which  are  based  wholly  in 
survivals  dating  from  remote  autocratic  pasts  are  still  re- 


THE  PRESENT  AS  A  PART  OF  HISTORY       409 

vered.  One  psychology  for  the  "cultured"  and  another  for 
the  "proletariat"  is  still  the  rule.  We  do  not  yet  see  edu- 
cation comprehensively  as  it  -was  enacted  comprehensively 
in  the  primitive  folkways :  the  mediation  of  the  content  and 
the  spirit  of  the  life  of  the  group  to  the  growing  members 
of  the  future  group.  Such  a  seeing, — such  a  theory, — will 
set  forth  the  educational  problem  of  to-day  as  a  community 
problem  in  the  old  sense ;  but  the  content  of  modern  life  is  a 
moving  content ;  and  the  spirit  of  the  modern  community  is 
a  changing  element.  The  theory  that  we  need  will  hold 
science  and  democracy  as  its  central  terms;  and  it  will 
define  science  as  the  living  spirit  of  inquiry  reverently 
working  in  the  service  of  the  good  life;  and  it  will  define 
democracy  as  that  only  sort  of  social  organization  in  which 
science  can  find  itself  permanently  at  home. 

And  so  we  see  that  the  history  of  education  is  not  ended. 
In  a  sense,  as  a  really  conscious  process  it  is  only  largely 
beginning.  Its  largest  task,  to  date  (unless  it  was  the  task 
accomplished  by  Socrates)  lies  just  ahead  of  us.  Here,  as 
almost  nowhere  else,  there  is  need  of  students.  Here  there 
is  chance  for  constructive  scholarship.  The  permanent,  and 
therefore  continuously  changing,  task  of  a  democratic  civ- 
ilization will  be  to  assure  itself  that  its  intrinsic  aims  and 
purposes  are  not  being  defeated  by  the  failures  of  its  edu- 
cational processes  to  measure  up  to  the  high  necessities  of 
the  age.  Democracy,  the  very  antithesis  of  the  folkway 
spirit,  is  assured  only  in  the  assurance  of  a  democratic  edu- 
cational process.  If  this  is  secured,  all  is  secure ;  if  this  is 
defeated  in  the  schools,  all  is  defeated.  The  schools  are 
either  the  hope  of  democracy  or  they  are  the  defeat  of  de- 
mocracy. Which  they  shall  be  remains  for  us  to  help  de- 
termine; and  for  some  future  history  of  educational  de- 
velopments to  record. 


APPENDIX 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  SUGGESTIONS 

This  brief  bibliography  is  offered  as  the  basis  of  further  work 
in  this  field.  For  the  student  of  the  history  of  education,  ac- 
quaintance with  the  standard  works  on  that  subject  is  desirable. 
Those  are,  in  brief: 

Graves,  "A  History  of  Education";  3  vols.    New  York,  1909- 

13. 
Monroe,  "Text-Book  in  the  History  of  Education."    New  York, 

1905. 
Parker,  "History  of  Modern  Elementary  Education."    Boston, 

1912. 

The  standpoint  from  which  the  present  volume  is  written  is, 
however,  somewhat  different  from  that  of  these  books.  The  near- 
est approach  to  it  is  that  of — 

Davidson,  "A  History  of  Education."    New  York  (Scribners), 
1907. 

But  the  anthropological  point  of  view  was  not  yet  clearly  estab- 
lished when  Davidson  wrote,  so  that  his  book  does  not  do  full 
justice  to  the  problem  of  origins;  and  it  compresses  the  psycho- 
logical discussions  of  the  modern  period  into  a  few  brief  chapters. 
A  complete  bibliography  of  the  history  of  education  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  present  volume  would  contain  very  wide  selec- 
tions from  all  the  fields  of  human  interest.  There  are  offered 
here  only  a  selected  few  of  the  many  books  which  have  helped  to 
form  the  theory  of  interpretation  and  to  give  the  foundations 
of  fact  underlying  this  presentation.  It  was  desirable  to  make 
this  list  brief,  because  overextended  lists  of  readings  are  dis- 
couraging. Hence,  in  most  cases  but  two  references  are  given. 
One  of  these  is  (more  or  less  definitely)  historical  and,  if  possible, 
contemporary  material;  the  other  is  critical.  The  divisional 
numbers  in  the  list  correspond  to  chapters  of  the  book. 

410 


APPENDIX  411 

1. 

Kidd,  "Savage  Childhood."    London.    Black.    1906. 
Sumner,  "Folkways."    Boston.     Ginn.    1907. 
Thomas,  "Source  Book  for  Social  Origins."    University  of  Chi- 
cago Press.    1909. 

2. 

Boas,  "Mind  of  Primitive  Man."    New  York.    Macmillan.    1911. 
King,  "Social  Aspects  of  Education,"  Ch.  2.    New  York.    Mac- 
millan.   1912. 

3. 
Spencer,    "Education    of   the    Pueblo    Child."     Columbia   Univ. 

Press.    1899. 

Wallis,  "Sociological  Study  of  the  Bible."  Univ.  of  Chicago 
Press.  1912. 

4. 

Mahaffy,  "Old  Greek  Education."    New  York.     Harper.    1882. 
Monroe,  "Source  Book  in  the  History  of  Education,"  pp.  1-50. 

New  York.    Macmillan.    1910. 
Tucker,  "Life  in  Ancient  Athens."    London.    Macmillan.     1912. 

5. 

Dewey  &  Tufts,  "Ethics,"  Chs.  4,  5,    New  York.    Holt.    1908. 
Grant,    "Greece   in   the   Age   of   Pericles."    London.    Murray. 

1909. 
Monroe,  "Source  Book."    Pp.  51-109. 

6. 

Aristophanes,  "The  Clouds." 

Robinson,  "The  New  History,"  Lecture  VIII.  New  York.  Mac- 
millan. 1912. 

Sumner,  "War  and  Other  Essays,"  Especially,  "The  Absurd 
Effort  to  Make  the  World  Over."  Yale  University  Press. 
1911. 

7. 

Davidson,  "Education  of  the  Greek  People,"  pp.  78-102.  New 
York.  Appleton.  1894. 

Grote,  "History  of  Greece,"  Vol.  4,  Ch.  46.  London.  Murray. 
1907. 


412  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Plato's  "Dialogues:     The  Sophists;  Euthydemusj  Protagoras." 

8. 

Monroe,  "Source  Book,"  pp.  116-122. 
Plato's  "Dialogues:  Phaedo,  Crito,  The  Apology." 

9. 
Nettleship,   "Theory   of  Education  in  the  Republic  of  Plato." 

University  of  Chicago  Press.    1906. 
Plato,  "The  Republic,"  Books  2-7. 

10. 
Davidson,  "Aristotle  and  the  Ancient  Educational  Ideal."    New 

York.     Scribners.    1910. 
Monroe,  "Source  Book,"  Chapter  VI. 

11. 

Kingsley,  "Alexandria  and  Her  Schools."    London.    1854. 
Sandys,  "History  of  Classical  Scholarship,"  Vol.  I,  Chs.  8,  9. 
Cambridge  University  Press.    1906. 

12. 
Fowler,  "City-state  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,"  Chs.  7-11.    New 

York.    Macmillan.    1911. 
Monroe,  "Source  Book,"  pp.  327-451. 

13. 

Plutarch's  "Morals." 

Taylor,  "Ancient  Ideals,"  Vol.  I,  Ch.  13.    New  York.    Macmil- 
lan.   1913. 

14. 
Harnack,  "What  is  Christianity?"  Part  I.    New  York.    Putnams. 

1901. 
The  New  Testament:  Gospels  according  to  Mark  and  Luke. 

15. 

Adams,   "Civilization  During  the  Middle  Ages,"   Ch.   3.     New 

York.     Scribners.     1911. 
Taylor,   "Classical   Heritage  of  the  Middle   Ages,"   Chs.  5,   6. 

New  York.    Macmillan.    1911. 


APPENDIX  413 

16. 
Robinson,  "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I,  Chs.  2,  3, 

8.     Boston.     Ginn.     1904. 

Taylor,  "The  Mediaeval  Mind,"  Chs.  6-8.    London.    Macmillan. 
1911. 

17. 

Emerton,  "Mediaeval  Europe."    Boston.     Ginn.     1894. 
Robinson,  "Readings  in  European  History,"  Vol.  I,  Chs.  9,  15-20. 
Taylor,  "The  Mediaeval  Mind,"  Vol.  2,  Chs.  34-13. 

18. 
Bury,  "History  of  the  Freedom  of  Thought."    New  York.    Holt. 

1913. 
Osborn,  "Prom  the  Greeks  to  Darwin."    New  York.    Macmillan. 

1908. 

19. 
Cheyney,  "Industrial  and  Social  History  of  England,"  Chs.  2-6. 

London.    1912. 
Lea,  "History  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  Vol.  I,  Chs. 

2-14.    New  York.    Harpers.    1908. 

20. 
Robinson  and  Rolfe,  "Petrarch,  the  First  Modern  .Scholar  and 

Man  of  Letters."    New  York.    Putnams.     1909. 
Whitcomb,    "Source    Book    of   the   Italian   Renaissance."    New 

York.    Longmans.    1903. 

21.  A. 
Beard,  "The  Reformation  of  the  16th  Century  in  Its  Relation  to 

Modern  Thought  and  Knowledge."    London.     1883. 
White,   "History   of  the   Warfare  of   Science   with   Theology." 

New  York.    Appleton.    1910. 

21.  B. 

Bacon,  "On  the  Advancement  of  Learning."    1605. 
Libby,  "The   History  of  Science."    Boston.     Houghton  Mifflin. 
1917. 

21.  C. 

Ostrogorski,  "Democracy  and  the  Origin  of  Political  Parties," 
Vol.  I.    New  York.    Macmillan.    1908. 


414  DEMOCEACY  IN  EDUCATION 

Rousseau,  "The  Social  Contract."    1762. 

21.  D. 

Beard,  "The  Industrial  Revolution."    London.    1901. 
Ogg,  "The  Economic  Development  of  Modern  Europe,"  Part  I. 
New  York.    Macmillan.    1917. 

22. 

Lankester,  "The  Kingdom  of  Man."    New  York.    Holt.    1911. 
Weyl,  "The  New  Democracy."    New  York.    Macmillan.    1912. 

23. 

Acton,  "Cambridge  Modern  History,"  Vol.  I,  Chs.  1,  2.    New 

York.    Macmillan.    1912. 
Williams,    "The   Beginnings   of  Modern    Science."    New   York. 

Goodhue  Company.    1909. 

24. 

Acton,  "Cambridge  Modern  History,"  Vol.  I,  Ch.  16. 
Woodward,      "Desiderius      Erasmus."   ^Cambridge.    University 
Press.    1904. 

25. 

Bacon,  "The  New  Atlantis."     (After  1620.) 
Comenius,  "The  Great  Didactic,  etc."    Written  1632;  published 
1849. 

26. 

Bacon's  "Novum  Organum."    1620. 

Nichol,  "Francis  Bacon,  his  Life  and  Philosophy,"  (two  parts). 
Edinburgh.    Blackwood,  1902. 

27.  A. 

Milton,  "Tractate  on  Education."    1644. 
Rabelais,  "Gargantua"  and  "Pantagruel."    1533-35. 

27.  B. 

Chesterfield,  "Letters."    London.    1774. 

Montaigne's   "Education   of   Children."    New  York.    Appleton. 
1899. 

27.  C. 

Monroe,  "Comenius  and  the  Beginners  pf  Educational  Reform." 
New  York.    Scribners.    1907. 


APPENDIX  415 

Quick,  "Richard  Mulcaster's  Positions."  London.  Longmans. 
1888. 

28. 

Adamson,  "Educational  Writings  of  John  Locke."  New  York. 
Longmans.  1912. 

Judd,  "Psychology  of  the  High  School  Subjects,"  Ch.  17.  Bos- 
ton. Ginn.  1915. 

29. 
Parker,  "History  of  Modern  Elementary  Education,"  Chs.  8-10. 

Boston.     Ginn.    1912. 
Rousseau,  "Emile."    1762. 

30. 

Rogers,  "Student's  History  of  Philosophy,"  pp.  415-27.    New 

York.    Macmillan.     1908. 
Wallace,  "Kant,"  Ch.  10.     Edinburgh.     Blackwood.     1911. 

31.  A. 

Parker,  "History  of  Modern  Elementary  Education,"  Chs.  13-16. 
Pestalozzi,  "Leonard  and  Gertrude."    1781. 

31.  B. 

Dewey,  "Democracy  and  Education,"  Ch.  VI.    New  York.    Mac- 
millan.   1916. 
Herbart,  "Outlines  of  Educational  Doctrine."    1835. 

31.  C. 

Froebel,  "Education  of  Man."    1826. 

Ham,  "Mind  and  Hand."  Cincinnati.  American  Book  Co. 
1900. 

32. 

Chambers,  "Vestiges  of  the  Natural  History  of  Creation."    1846. 
Crampton,  "The  Doctrine  of  Evolution."    New  York,  Columbia 
University  Press.    1911. 

33. 

Mann,    "Science    in    Civilization    and    Science    in    Education." 

School  Review,  Vol.  14.    Pp.  664-70. 
Spencer,  "Education."     (Before  1860.) 


416  DEMOCRACY  IN  EDUCATION 

34. 

Dewey,  "Democracy  and  Education." 

Martin,  "Evolution  of  the  Massachusetts  State  School  System." 
New  York.    Appleton.    1908. 

35. 
Cubberley,     "Changing     Conceptions     of     Education."    Boston. 

Houghton  Mifflin.    1909. 
Munroe,  "New  Demands  in  Education."    New  York.    Double- 

day-Page.    1912. 

36. 
McDougall,  "Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,"  Chs.  2,  3,  7-9. 

Boston.    Luce.    1909. 
Thorndike,   "Educational  Psychology,"  three  vols.    New  York. 

Teachers  College.    1913. 

37. 

Dewey,  "Schools  of  Tomorrow."    New  York.    Dutton.    1915. 
Hart,  "Educational  Resources  of  Village  and  Rural  Communities." 
New  York.    Macmillan.    1913. 


INDEX 


Alexandrian  Age,  100  ff 
Anselm,  225 
Apperception,  320  f 
Aristotle,  10,  95-99,  150  f,  166 
Athens,  46  ff 

Bacon,  252,  255-261 
Barbarian    invasions,    134,    137- 
144 

Certainty,  13,  28,  51,  54  f,  77,  97, 
117  f,  146-149,  176  f,  384 

Chivalry,  154  f 

Christianity,  120-136,  162,  215  ff 

Cicero,  112,  246  ff 

City  life,  170 

Classics,   184  ff,  265-9,   375-6 

Comenius,  251  ff,  281  f 

Common  life,  62,  102-3,  115,  138, 
163,  215  f,  217 

Community,  Chs.  1,  2,  p.  371  ff 

Conceptualism,  176 

Conservatives,  59-63 

Crisis,  8  ff,  52.  54  ff,  64  f 

Custom,  54,  63,  65,  71  ff,  124  f, 
142,  183 

Dante,  99,  156 

Democracy,    11,    60,    103,    139  f, 

163  f,    187,   206,    209-15,   224- 

32,  358  ff,  400-409 
Democracy  in  education,  361-72 
Dewey,   326,   407 
Discipline,  359  ff 

Ecclesiasticism,    172  f 
Emotions,  181  ff 
Encyclopedism,  249  ff 
Ephebic  Oath,  49 


417 


Erasmus,  248,  267 
Evolution,  28,  337-346 
Evolution  in  education,  342  ff 

Fatherland,  84  f,  88 

Folkways,  5  ff,  10  ff,  13,  17  ff,  21, 

26,  32,  45,  50  ff,  64,  72  ff,  91, 

107  ff,  126,  194 
Freedom,  11,  84,  195,  197,  205 
Froebel,  327-35 
Frontier,  165,  174  ff,  177  f 

Galileo,  11 
Gary  System,  407 
Greco-Roman,  110,  145 
Greece,  45  ff,  183 
Group  life,  4  ff 

Growth,  75,  123  f,  133  f,  136,  140- 
43,  179  f,  187,  229,  291-99 

Habit,    54,    63,    65,    71  ff,    124  f, 

142,  183 

Hebrew  education,  37  ff,  115  f 
Herbart,  317-26 
Heresy,  171 
High  School,  26 
History,  28,  58, 400-407 
Human  Nature,  57 
Humanism.  184,  242-48 
Huxley,  53,  352  f 
Hypothesis,  83,  87,  97,  145 

Ideas,  67.  73  ff,  85  ff,  95  f ,  178 

Idols,  259 

Individual,  22  ff,  57  f,  64  f,  67  f, 
72.  78,  89,  121,  135,  139,  142, 
155,  162.  179  ff,  187,  192  ff 

Industrial  Revolution,  217-23 

Initiation,  23  ff 


418 


INDEX 


Institutionalism,  124,  143 
Intellectualism,  89  f,  114,  133 
Inventiveness,  3,  144 

Jesus,  122  ff 

Kant,  301-308 
Kindergarten,  328  ff 

Locke,  253,  285-90 
Luther,  11,  190  ff 
Lyric  Poetry,  55 

Materialism    in   education,    262- 

282 
Mechanism  of   the   social   order, 

118-121 
Medievalism,    12,    145-157,    162, 

225 

Medieval  Universities,  153 
Method,  36-38,  47  ff,  65,  76,  89  f, 

104,    107,    112,    118,    127,    131, 

185  ff,   226,   240,   257  ff,   276  ff, 

319  ff,  329  ff,  384  ff 
Militarism,  46  ff,  108  ff,  111 
Milton,  267  ff 
Monastic  education,  152  ff 
Montaigne,  271  f 
Mysticism,  171 

Nationality,  163,  169 
Naturalism,  291  ff 
Nominalism,  173  ff 

Observation,  96-7 

Oriental  education,  30-41,  108 

Pansophism,  249  ff 
Partisanship,  375-83 
Pestalozzi,  310-17 
Petrarch,  181 
Plato,  78,  83-93 


Political  order,  6,  77,  208-17 
Priestly  dominance,  47 
Printing,  176 
Protestantism,  19  Iff 
Psychology,  384  f,  386-99 

Rabelais,  267 
Ratke,  280 
Realism,  173  ff 
Reformation,  163,  190  ff 
Religious     influences,    25  ff,    47, 

103,  115 

Renaissance,  179  ff 
Revival  of  Learning,  182  f 
Revolution,  167,  208-17,  241 
Rome,  105,  107-113 
Rousseau,  291-99 

Saracens,  165  ff 

School,   19,  22,  36,  48,  75,   104, 

108,  lllff 
Science,    11,   28,   96  ff,    103,    183, 

197-208,  257  ff,  347  ff 
Scientific    method    in    education, 

355-57 

Sects,  101,  374  ff 
Secular  Ideals,  172  f,  196 
Social  world,  181 
Socrates,  68,  70-79 
Sophists,  60,  64-69,  71 
Sparta,  46  ff 
Spencer,  348-52 

Theory,  49  f,  53,  67,  309  f 
Thomas  Aquinas,  99,  155  f,  226 

Unconscious  education,  19  ff 
Universities,  166 

Vernacular,  171  ff 
Vittorino  de  Feltre,  243 
Vocational      education,      23-26, 
380  ff 


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